Saturday-Pentacle

Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 199 // Week 35 // 2020

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By Himanshu Sachdeva

Hello!

Welcome to another edition of Saturday Pentacle.

Hope you are starting the weekend relaxed and on a good note.

The past week I struggled to get any walks or runs in. So it was quite literally (only) working from the home week.

I’m excited for this weekend as there is an audio/microphones webinar I’m attending to learn more about improving audio quality (for my podcast/youtube videos), where an expert from Shure will be sharing his ideas, techniques and different types of equipment.

This week I listened to an audiobook for 2-3 days consistently (The Ride of a Lifetime). Listening to the experiences of people who have reached the highest level of their expertise is just awesome!

Moving forward to the newsletter, here is my weekly creative progress –

  1. My Language learning is going consistent at the moment. Learning 15-20 minutes every day. I think when I’m able to understand movies and literature, then I’ll announce here which language I’m learning.
  2. My book reading progress – (added another interesting book to reading list this week – 3rd one)
    1. The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons in Creative Leadership from the CEO of the Walt Disney Company – Progress 40% (Audible)
    2. The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes – Progress 20% (Audible) – no much progress on this one last week.
    3. The Descent of Man by Grayson Perry – Progress 20% (Audible)
    4. World War Z by Max Brooks – Progress 15% (Audible)

That’s it for personal and creative updates.

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

Issue 199 // Week 35 // 2020

A tribute to an Indian Cinema Legend —

AK Hangal – इतना सन्नाटा क्यों है भाई.. (Why it is so silent, brother…)

This line is famous in Indian Cinema because of AK Hangal. On 26th Aug 2020, it was his 8th Death Anniversary.

He has worked with all the legendary actors in Indian Cinema. He has played each and every character role there is. He had this soothing elderly presence in most of the movies in the 80s and the 90s.

He lived for 98 years and died on 26th Aug 2012. May he rest in peace.

A product or rather a tribe I’m finding myself attracted to —

Mechanical Keyboards – They have been like an underground movement of sorts from a long time. With different layouts (60%, 40% etc), custom keycaps, led lights and a whole plethora of customization options, the Mechanical Keyboards have come a long way.

Earlier only the gaming community seemed more attracted to these kinds of custom keyboards. But now these keyboards have started getting the attention of the mainstream creatives as well.

But it still remains an expensive hobby, in India, I remember the TVS Gold Bharat Keyboard since my childhood, which has been the choice of professionals who have to type a lot. But now as the Internet is bringing the world closer and making it smaller. A whole new world of possibilities in Mechanical Keyboards area is opening up.

I couldn’t imagine someone will have a YouTube channel just dedicated to Mechanical Keyboards, reviewing them, making us listen to the ASMR sounds of keyboards. That’s next level shi*. But here is a channel which does exactly this – Taeha Types

If this got you interested and excited, you can check out below video to learn more about Mechanical Keyboards –

An article and upcoming tech I’m fascinated by —

All about Neuralink by waitbutwhy – Neuralink is a new interface on which Elon Musk (the founder of Tesla and SpaceX) is working since past couple of years. He thinks that the current way of interacting with computers (by keyboard, mouse or a digital pencil etc.) limits our bandwidth while talking to computers. So in the Neuralink project, he’s trying to make a direct interface between the human brain and the computer. I think they are almost there with this interface. Neuralink just did a demo where a pig was implanted with Neuralink implant and they showed how they get the information of neurons firing in the brain as the pig touched different things.

I know it sounds scary that you can just think and the note will be written on the computer or a file will be saved or more. It is scary but at the same time, it’s exciting too. But will this make us cyborgs? I don’t know, maybe we are already cyborgs. Computer and Mobile phones are our second brain nowadays. Without them, we are like almost stripped away from power. So instead of getting scared from what’s coming, we should learn about it in detail.

To learn everything about Neuralink, check out the article (title link or click here). It’s a long article as are most of them on this blog waitbutwhy. But it’s worth spending that time to learn about how humans evolved till here and what is Neuralink and where we might be heading.

Here is the demo video –

A song I loved —

May Be by half•alive – Stumbled upon this beautiful groovy rich song by half•alive from Now, Not Yet album on Spotify.

Definately lifted my Mood, check it out –

Quote which I found meaningful –

Someone who thinks the world is always cheating them is right. They are missing that wonderful feeling of trust in someone or something.

— Eric Hoffer

Before saying “see you next week”

I’m really excited to share the new Lifestyle Architecture Lab interactive community on Vibely app! 💙

Join today with this special invite link to the group.

Why vibely? Basically it’s a place where we want to make the group and our content interactive. There are daily interesting challenges like –

  • Reading for 1 hour everyday and posting your progress
  • Doing one act of kindness every day
  • Journaling prompts for you
  • Travel writing for 500 words

and more such creative challenges.

It’s a really fun place to be. You’ll get gamified rewards and recognitions for completing the challenges. We are trying to make it a safe place for all the like-minded people to join in the self-growth journey. If you are already working on your passion projects then you’ll get all the support you can and no bashing or judgement for being who you want to be.💡

Join today with this special invite link to the group.

P.S.: Our Facebook group is not going anywhere, we are just adding an interactive branch to it.

Until Next Saturday!

Thanks for reading.

Himanshu

About Author

I’m Himanshu Sachdeva, 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 199 // Week 35 // 2020

What to do Next?

If you are not signed up to my email list, go ahead and do it right now so that you don’t miss any new weekly SATURDAY PENTACLE post and more interesting emails on Lifestyle Design, Productivity and Creative Entrepreneurship. (plus new podcast episode announcements).

Just enter your email address below and click “Subscribe!”

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Saturday-Pentacle

Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 198 // Week 34 // 2020

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By Himanshu Sachdeva

Hello!

Welcome to another edition of Saturday Pentacle.

As I’ve been learning more about habit-forming and consistency, I’m also learning about the other side of things, entropy and related things.

EntropyA measure of disorder is not just one state, it indeed is the default state of the universe. If we want to bring some order, you have to apply force to reduce entropy and increase order. Entropy is universal, but it is also personal.

We are struggling every day to bring order in our lives, make everything better. But Entropy is like a time’s arrow, it will always be there. You like it or not. You handle this situation, that situation will come. You may have one moment of peace and the next moment you find that entropy pushed that domino and everything is a mess.

That’s where things like being consistent and building habits, help. We can’t predict everything, but what we can do is – reduce the mess or recover fast from the entropy moments.

I’m constantly finding myself fighting against entropy. That’s why I’m constantly doing more to better on my habits and being consistent. James Clear’s book “Atomic Habit” which I finished last month was a good help.

Moving forward to the newsletter, here is my weekly creative progress –

  1. I’m crossed my 50th (consecutive) streak of a new language learning class (on Duolingo), next target is to reach 100 days of learning.
  2. My book reading progress – (added another interesting book to reading list this week – 3rd one)
    1. The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons in Creative Leadership from the CEO of the Walt Disney Company – Progress 35% (Audible)
    2. The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes – Progress 20% (Audible)
    3. The Descent of Man by Grayson Perry – Progress 15% (Audible)
    4. World War Z by Max Brooks – Progress 10% (Audible)

That’s it for personal and creative updates.

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

Issue 198 // Week 34 // 2020

A product which got me excited —

fanttik Electric Screwdriver-Power Meets Precision – For my DIY projects I was looking for an electronic drill which can do “jack of all” kinda work. I found this amazing product on IndiGoGo. It has those little things which makes distinguish the product from good to best –

  1. One Hand easy drill bit pull-off.
  2. Precision for very delicate drilling and high power for drilling a wall.
  3. Digital Display (this is the first time a drill has a digital display)
  4. Ergonomics! (I think this is one of the key selling points)

If you are a DIYer, you might love this product as well. It’s shipping soon, so book while you can.

A (unix) nerd fact I discovered —

Apple replaces bash with zsh as the default shell in macOS Catalina – Last year (Jun 2019) Apple replaced the main shell from bash to zsh (called may be zeesh or zish?). Well, this point may only be relevant to you if you are a developer using a mac or may be you are a nerd. If not, then you can move on to the next point.

With zsh basically, you’ll have to link your z profile to your main bash profile (.profile) to be able to access to your normal shortcuts and aliases. Plus there is much more difference in zsh and bash. Here is a link for further reading between zsh vs bash comparison.

Here is why you should move from bash to zsh, if you haven’t yet.

A newsletter I’m loving —

Indiepod Bulletin by Sonologue – If you are a podcaster or aspiring to be one or maybe you love audio (audio engineer? producer?). This is one newsletter you should subscribe to.

My dear friend Chhavi who is a podcasting coach and producer herself started publishing her newsletter few moons back. (BTW she’s been in my podcast too!)

Here is the third issue of her newsletter. Check it out!

You can subscribe to it here.

A song I loved —

You & the Cockroach – This song by Hobo Johnson stole the show last week, Amazing lyrics and a very alternative style for a song. Storytelling, sarcasm, politics, comedy and what not! All in one song.

Check it out.

Quote which I found meaningful –

Plant a bitter crop and guess what you get when it’s the harvest time, it’s Karma Bitch!

— Unknown

Before saying “see you next week”

I’m really excited to share the new Lifestyle Architecture Lab interactive community on Vibely app! 💙

Join today with this special invite link to the group.

Why vibely? Basically it’s a place where we want to make the group and our content interactive. There are daily interesting challenges like –

  • Reading for 1 hour everyday and posting your progress
  • Doing one act of kindness every day
  • Journaling prompts for you
  • Travel writing for 500 words

and more such creative challenges.

It’s a really fun place to be. You’ll get gamified rewards and recognitions for completing the challenges. We are trying to make it a safe place for all the like-minded people to join in the self-growth journey. If you are already working on your passion projects then you’ll get all the support you can and no bashing or judgement for being who you want to be.💡

Join today with this special invite link to the group.

P.S.: Our Facebook group is not going anywhere, we are just adding an interactive branch to it.

Until Next Saturday!

Thanks for reading.

Himanshu

About Author

I’m Himanshu Sachdeva, 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 198 // Week 34 // 2020

What to do Next?

If you are not signed up to my email list, go ahead and do it right now so that you don’t miss any new weekly SATURDAY PENTACLE post and more interesting emails on Lifestyle Design, Productivity and Creative Entrepreneurship. (plus new podcast episode announcements).

Just enter your email address below and click “Subscribe!”

Continue Reading

Saturday-Pentacle

Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 197 // Week 33 // 2020

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By Himanshu Sachdeva

Hello!

Welcome to another edition of Saturday Pentacle.

First of all Happy 74th Indian 🇮🇳 Independence Day!

It’s been 74 long years since Indian-freedom from British empire and India has progressed and grown like an old Banyan tree with its branches coming out from various directions. Many branches (people) are still suppressed and some are thriving in exponential ways but the majority part which is the main stem of this thick tree (the Indian middle class) is growing ever so slowly.

Technology, Finance and Banking all have been the main pillars of the progress of our nation but still the most important of all is the people who are the main pillar and they will always be (maybe until an Artificial Intelligence or a machine takes its place).

I’m glad I was born in this country and have been part of this progress. But there is a long road still which we are yet to travel and I think while we are on this road trip, might as well enjoy!

Moving forward to the newsletter, here is my weekly creative progress –

  1. I’m approaching 50th (consecutive) streak of a new language learning class (on Duolingo).
  2. Podcast Episode 24 is ready for publishing and launching in a couple of days and finally, another long-pending Episode 25th (have been following up with this guest for 9 months) recording very soon.
  3. My book reading progress – (added another interesting book to reading list this week – 3rd one)
    1. The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons in Creative Leadership from the CEO of the Walt Disney Company – Progress 25% (Audible)
    2. The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes – Progress 15% (Audible)
    3. The Descent of Man by Grayson Perry – Progress 10% (Audible)

That’s it for personal and creative updates.

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

Issue 197 // Week 33 // 2020

An essential oil I’m curious to try —

Neroli oil – An essential oil distilled from the blossoms of the bitter orange or Seville orange (Citrus × aurantiumsubsp. amara) and is used to make perfumes.

Neroli oil blends well with other oils such as Jasmine oil, Lavender oil, Rosemary oil and all citrus oils.

This Pale-yellow neroli oil emits a sweet, full-bodied citrus aroma with a slightly spicy, slightly bitter undertone.

If you are an essential oil connoisseur. You might like this one.

Here is the amazon link for buying if you are interested.

An article I found interesting —

Pandemics Come in Predictable Cycles. If I’m the Smartest Guy in the Room, We’re in Big Trouble – Max Brooks who is the author of the books – zombie fiction World War Z and the latest Bigfoot fiction – Devolution etc, shares a lot of insights in this conversation – how science fiction turned him into a disaster expert and how many things he has written in his books have come true (a pandemic though not zombie one and how people are forced to be inside homes – as mentioned in his book Devolution).

The most admirable thing I found while reading Brooks books is how thorough his research is. He even mentions in this article that for one hour of writing there is almost 100 hours of research done by him.

Really enjoyed reading about Max Brooks’ life in this written interview. A good read.

An interesting but scary model graph I found out —

This mathematical model helps estimate the riskiness of different activities based on one potential route of coronavirus spread: itty-bitty particles known as aerosols.

Source – NatGeo

Recollection of Historic fact from 15 Aug (may be as this newsletter is Independence day special) —

Surrender of Japan – The surrender of Japan on September 2, 1945, brought the hostilities of World War II to a close. Together with the British Empire and China, the United States called for the unconditional surrender of the Japanese armed forces in the Potsdam Declaration on July 26, 1945. Japan’sleaders privately made entreaties to the publicly neutral Soviet Union to mediate more favourable peace terms.

Atom bomb

On August 6, the United States detonated an atomic bomb over Hiroshima. On August 8, the Soviet Union invaded the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo. Hours later, the United States dropped a second atomic bomb, on Nagasaki. Emperor Hirohito intervened and ordered that the Allies’ terms for ending the war be accepted. Hirohito gave a recorded radio address transmitted across the empire on August 15, announcing the surrender of Japan. The surrender ceremony was held aboard the battleship USS Missouri, at which officials from the Japanese government signed the Japanese Instrument of surrender (pictured below).

Japanese foreign affairs minister Mamoru Shigemitsu signs the Japanese Instrument of Surrender aboard the USS Missouri as General Richard K. Sutherland watches, September 2, 1945

Quote which I found meaningful –

People are in pursuit of many things in life, for external reasons not internal. Maybe they are doing things they are not even motivated to do, but because other people expect these things from them. Very few people speak to themselves and their innermost desires and really let reflect themselves. Everything happened to you since you were a baby and has shaped you, when you reflect on that, when you evaluate yourself as a human being, you’ll make decisions that will make you happier.

— Chidanand Hiremath (From Podcast episode #23 of LALP with Himanshu)

Before saying “see you next week”

I cordially invite you to join the Lifestyle Architecture Lab interactive community on Vibely app! 💙

We do creative challenges, habit creation and related stuff on the group. Here is your special invite link to the group.

Until Next Saturday!

Thanks for reading.

Himanshu

About Author

I’m Himanshu Sachdeva, 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 197 // Week 33 // 2020

What to do Next?

If you are not signed up to my email list, go ahead and do it right now so that you don’t miss any new weekly SATURDAY PENTACLE post and more interesting emails on Lifestyle Design, Productivity and Creative Entrepreneurship. (plus new podcast episode announcements).

Just enter your email address below and click “Subscribe!”

Continue Reading

Saturday-Pentacle

Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 196 // Week 32 // 2020

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By Himanshu Sachdeva

Hello!

Welcome to another edition of Saturday Pentacle.

I hope your week went well. My own week was filled with work on both professional and personal fronts. But I felt joy working on both fronts as I’ve been coping with stress with my meditation sessions (with Waking Up app).

I’ve been practising a new kind of meditation from the app where you are observing your breathing for some time from a seeker perspective and then you suddenly switch perspective by seeing yourself seeking. It may sound weird and difficult but it makes you see yourself from a secondary point of view.

At biological level It makes you feel what is it that’s looking outwards, is it your brain? you as an entity? a bundle of nerves? or what? Sometimes I felt the agony of not being able to know – what is it inside me that is observing the breathing, of course, it can be said that it is oneself, but is it really though? Or is it just our consciousness?

But as I did the practice for a few days, I finally started to understand what it denotes. Why feeling this way is necessary and observing this state of self is necessary. Because If we see, our body and soul (if you think there is one), connects with each other through the consciousness. If consciousness is helping us gaze into the world, what if you start gazing back at consciousness itself. It starts disappearing as an object and remains as an inherent subject (oneself).

I know the whole thing I mentioned above, one may not understand completely, because you have to do this kind of session yourself with an open mind to be able to understand this. But it truly helped me in gaining perspective. I was able to focus more and feel joy.

Coming to creative progress –

  1. I’m on day 37 (consecutive) streak of a new language learning and feeling great to learn more.
  2. My next podcast episode (Episode 24 is also coming soon in next week), editing is in progress.
  3. My book reading progress –
    1. The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons in Creative Leadership from the CEO of the Walt Disney Company – Progress 15% (Audible)
    2. The Memoirs of Sherlock Homes – Progress 10% (Audible)

That’s it for personal and creative updates.

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

Issue 196 // Week 32 // 2020

An article I found useful —

How To Write In Your Journal To Improve Yourself and Achieve Your Goals – This how-to article by Benjamin Hardy, PhD is very elaborate documentation about why journaling is the most important thing one should do.

Where, why and when to journal. How to achieve a peak state with journaling right before you are about to start your work.

Useful read.

A travel itinerary I loved —

Mumbai to London by Train – Even though travelling seems like a distant dream in these COVID-19 times. But still one can dream. This itinerary is nothing short of a dream. Mumbai to London by Train!

Even though this route has a route through Pakistan, which may not be feasible now if you are going from India. But still, this IIT Guwahati student’s Itinerary felt like so much fun but a daring long train journey. Someday! (Someday!)

A trick I loved to journal more —

Real-Time Journaling – This real-time journaling video (with timer) by Lavendaire founder Aileen Xu, really helped me establish a journaling routine. As I was facing difficulty concentrating in my journaling habit. This feeling of writing along with someone really did the trick and I was able to journal more often.

Check it out, it may be helpful for you too if you are finding it difficult to journal.

Music I’m listening to —

Iltija by Samar Mehdi – I stumbled upon this refreshing piece of music by Samar Mehdi. Really heart felt piece of music and lyrics –

हुए जुदा जब हम तुमसे…
और क़रीब आ गए तुम हमसे…

When you are apart from me…
now we feel closer…

Really good one. Check it out.

Quote which I found meaningful –

The best ideas and insights occur away from your work. They happen while you’re relaxing, or often while you’re thinking about something completely unrelated.

— Benjamin Hardy, PhD

Before saying “see you next week”

I’m really excited to share the new episode of my podcast! (Finally after a good long creative block)

Episode 23 – Chidanand Hiremath (Visual Designer, Photographer and former Digital Nomad) – Traveling the world, knowing oneself and creating nude art

Links – Spotify | YouTube


Lastly, join the Lifestyle Architecture Lab interactive community on Vibely app! 💙

We do creative challenges, habit creation and related stuff on the group. Here is your special invite link to the group.

Until Next Saturday!

Thanks for reading.

Himanshu

About Author

I’m Himanshu Sachdeva, 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 196 // Week 32 // 2020

What to do Next?

If you are not signed up to my email list, go ahead and do it right now so that you don’t miss any new weekly SATURDAY PENTACLE post and more interesting emails on Lifestyle Design, Productivity and Creative Entrepreneurship. (plus new podcast episode announcements).

Just enter your email address below and click “Subscribe!”

Continue Reading

Saturday-Pentacle

Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 195 // Week 31 // 2020

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Saturday Pentacle Weekly Newsletter - Banner
By Himanshu Sachdeva

Hello!

Welcome to another edition of Saturday Pentacle.

If you have been reading the newsletter from some time now, you’ll know, I’ve been learning a new language!

This weekend will mark the 30th consecutive Day of my language learning and oh boy! let me tell you, making the learning like a game where daily playing it and making a streak, makes it so much fun. It changes the way you think about learning. My favourite language learning app – Duolingo has done just that. I think that’s the reason I’m able to stick to it. Sense of competition between online peers and rewards/trophies, that too has it’s own advantages.

I hope this learning continues and I finish the course in the coming few months!

Coming to some mental clarity talk, it has become really like a mental block to create or work on something new in these trying times for me. I’ve even been struggling with my own podcast since a month where I have a few episodes sitting in my editor window and I just couldn’t move an inch further.

To resolve this block, I talked to a couple of my creative friends, re-read a few chapters from the book – The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. Set on my computer for some more blocked sessions but finally, I got through some editing and about to finish the next episode. Creative work sometimes become so hard that it’s even hard to explain.

Anyway, moving to the book reading/listening progress, I finished the big Sherlock Homes series book 2 finally and started the next two book –

That’s it for the personal updates.

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

Issue 195 // Week 31 // 2020

An interesting tweet —

A Trip across America – Trailer and Crank Story – I came across this twitter thread last week and it made me feel weirdly connected to this old story from 1984.

How this guy (back then a kid) and his family embarked on an epic road trip across America. A lot of emotional moments and some funny ones in this travel memoir of sort.

A ad which stole my heart (specially with it’s video editing) —

You Can’t Stop Us – This new Nike ad is on another level of editing. Even though I loved the emotion in this ad but the editing! that stole my heart. Check it out!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WA4dDs0T7sM

A video I learned from —

What We’ve Learned from Write of Passage – This conversation between my favourite online writer and Twitterati (David Parell) and his business partner (Tiego Forte) was a class in its own way. They discussed how making their online class about online writing and learning about the whole process of how to improve their students’ experience, changed the whole game for them. Really interesting conversation if you are interested in online course creation and more.

Music I re-listened to —

Michael Kiwanuka – Cold Little Heart (Live Session Video) – This 11+ minutes Michael Kiwanuka song was on repeat this past weekend. This song touches a nerve suddenly right in the middle of the song and then you can not stop playing it again.

Quote which I found meaningful –

Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future too.

— Marcus Aurelius

Before saying “see you next week”

I’m really excited to share the new Lifestyle Architecture Lab interactive community on Vibely app! 💙

Join today with this special invite link to the group.

Why vibely? Basically it’s a place where we want to make the group and our content interactive. There are daily interesting challenges like –

  • Reading for 1 hour everyday and posting your progress
  • Doing one act of kindness every day
  • Journaling prompts for you
  • Travel writing for 500 words

and more such creative challenges.

It’s a really fun place to be. You’ll get gamified rewards and recognitions for completing the challenges. We are trying to make it a safe place for all the like-minded people to join in the self-growth journey. If you are already working on your passion projects then you’ll get all the support you can and no bashing or judgement for being who you want to be.💡

Join today with this special invite link to the group.

P.S.: Our Facebook group is not going anywhere, we are just adding an interactive branch to it.

Until Next Saturday!

Thanks for reading.

Himanshu

About Author

I’m Himanshu Sachdeva, 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 195 // Week 31 // 2020

What to do Next?

If you are not signed up to my email list, go ahead and do it right now so that you don’t miss any new weekly SATURDAY PENTACLE post and more interesting emails on Lifestyle Design, Productivity and Creative Entrepreneurship. (plus new podcast episode announcements).

Just enter your email address below and click “Subscribe!”

Continue Reading

Saturday-Pentacle

Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 194 // Week 30 // 2020

No Comments
Saturday Pentacle Weekly Newsletter - Banner
By Himanshu Sachdeva

Hello!

Welcome to another edition of Saturday Pentacle.

In the past week, I posted a creative challenge each day on my Vibely Lifestyle Architecture Community (link for the same at the end). As I was creating these challenges for my community, it gave my own creativity a new spark and I was able to come up with new ideas every day.

Apart from that, it was not a very peaceful week at the work front. Too many things going on at the moment. Just trying to calm the storm down.

As I’m sitting too many hours while working from home, to get my body moving I started going on long walks since past 1-2 weeks. I’ve been enjoying my late evening walks as I use that time to listen to my audiobooks as well. It gives me a clear phase shift between work and self.

Coming to the book reading/listening progress, I listened to the Sherlock Holmes only this week –

That’s it for the personal updates.

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

Issue 194 // Week 30 // 2020

An interesting art portfolio —

Art from Sifty Kaur – Found this artist on the interwebs and her art is really interesting – oil painting on canvas, drawings and paintings.

Check it out, here is one of her artworks –

An interesting tweet —

London to Culcutta journey on bus – Found out that there was a bus service which used to tour London-Calcutta (India) route and it existed till 70s.

I just wonder how the passengers would have coped for so long a bus journey. I wish I had a time wheel to go back and travel in this bus.

Check out the tweet below for details –

https://twitter.com/RKDasgupta/status/1277694020916056064

A home architecture story I loved —

Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra’s Pavana holiday home – This Houzz story on the Rang De Basanti director – Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra‘s Pavana Home was a great home architecture story.

He has this multi pavilion home near Pavana Lake in Maharashtra which has a mesmerizing view and a design created like a jigsaw with interlocking structures making it whole and then some!

Music I’m loving —

Everyone Lied by Dorvin Borman – Loved the Grungy vibe of this song and put me in flow state.

Beautiful drum and synth amalgamation!

Quote which I found meaningful –

The only way to learn it is to do it.

— Archimedes, “Sword in the Stone”

Before saying “see you next week”

I’m really excited to share the new Lifestyle Architecture Lab interactive community on Vibely app! 💙

Join today with this special invite link to the group.

Why vibely? Basically it’s a place where we want to make the group and our content interactive. There are daily interesting challenges like –

  • Reading for 1 hour everyday and posting your progress
  • Doing one act of kindness every day
  • Journaling prompts for you
  • Travel writing for 500 words

and more such creative challenges.

It’s a really fun place to be. You’ll get gamified rewards and recognitions for completing the challenges. We are trying to make it a safe place for all the like-minded people to join in the self-growth journey. If you are already working on your passion projects then you’ll get all the support you can and no bashing or judgement for being who you want to be.💡

Join today with this special invite link to the group.

P.S.: Our Facebook group is not going anywhere, we are just adding an interactive branch to it.

Until Next Saturday!

Thanks for reading.

Himanshu

About Author

I’m Himanshu Sachdeva, 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 194 // Week 30 // 2020

What to do Next?

If you are not signed up to my email list, go ahead and do it right now so that you don’t miss any new weekly SATURDAY PENTACLE post and more interesting emails on Lifestyle Design, Productivity and Creative Entrepreneurship. (plus new podcast episode announcements).

Just enter your email address below and click “Subscribe!”

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Saturday-Pentacle

Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 193 // Week 29 // 2020

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Saturday Pentacle Weekly Newsletter - Banner
By Himanshu Sachdeva

Hello!

Welcome to another edition of Saturday Pentacle.

Last week was a reflection week for me. I conducted a half-yearly review of my yearly goals. As it is important to work hard on things you care about, it is more important to reflect on your progress in short and medium periods. For me, these periods are weekly, monthly and 6 monthly. It made me rethink about course correction and realigning my energies towards things that actually matter.

Otherwise, it was a productive week for me on the work side, on the creative side it was more of consume week than create. Next week is going to be a create week more than consume.

Coming to the book reading/listening progress, I listened to the Sherlock Holmes some more this past week and finished the Atomic Habits –

  1. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – 75% done (Audible)
  2. Atomic Habits by James Clear – 100% done (Audible) – This audiobook is like a page-turner version for audio (I don’t know if there is a specific word for it for audiobooks, let me know in comments if there is).

That’s it for the personal updates.

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

Issue 193 // Week 29 // 2020

An new material I’m exited about —

Pentadiamond – A new addition to the carbon family, Pentadiamond, is predicted to be light like graphite, hard like diamond and semiconducting like silicon.

I can’t even imagine, how many use cases are there for this kind of material. I’m excited to think about – how it might be used (i hope not as a weapon).

Here is the original research publication link.

A poem I loved —

I would like you to be still! read by Eva Green – I recently discovered the Eva Green has an Instagram page and man! isn’t it filled up weird but fresh stuff, I hadn’t been exposed to before.

This is Pablo Neruda’s poem “I would like you to be still!” in Eva’s brilliant voice –

The poem and the narration both are wonderful.

A show I loved —

Homecoming – I was excited to watch the Season 2 after an amazing Season 1 with Julia Roberts as the protagonist. Homecoming series is about how a private company authorized by military runs a program to make the PTSD veterans forget their past. But it becomes much more than that eventually. It’s a great drama and the way it is shot, kudos to the DOP.

I loved the season two as well, even though the protagonist is different in this but she’s a refreshing change.

You can check it out on Amazon PrimeVideo – Season 1 | Season 2

A Podcast episode I re-listened —

How to Become a Psychedelic Therapist – This episode of the Tim Ferriss show was amazing. Marcela’s story, the conversation about the psychedelic therapy and MAPS were out of the world.

A must listen. This was the second time I listened to it this week.

Quote which I found meaningful –

Once we let go of every thing, everything remains.

— The Minimalists

Before saying “see you next week”

I’m really excited to share the new Lifestyle Architecture Lab interactive community on Vibely app! 💙

Join today with this special invite link to the group.

Why vibely? Basically it’s a place where we want to make the group and our content interactive. There are daily interesting challenges like –

  • Reading for 1 hour everyday and posting your progress
  • Doing one act of kindness every day
  • Journaling prompts for you
  • Travel writing for 500 words

and more such creative challenges.

It’s a really fun place to be. You’ll get gamified rewards and recognitions for completing the challenges. We are trying to make it a safe place for all the like-minded people to join in the self-growth journey. If you are already working on your passion projects then you’ll get all the support you can and no bashing or judgement for being who you want to be.💡

Join today with this special invite link to the group.

P.S.: Our Facebook group is not going anywhere, we are just adding an interactive branch to it.

Until Next Saturday!

Thanks for reading.

Himanshu

About Author

I’m Himanshu Sachdeva, 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 193 // Week 29 // 2020

What to do Next?

If you are not signed up to my email list, go ahead and do it right now so that you don’t miss any new weekly SATURDAY PENTACLE post and more interesting emails on Lifestyle Design, Productivity and Creative Entrepreneurship. (plus new podcast episode announcements).

Just enter your email address below and click “Subscribe!”

Continue Reading

Saturday-Pentacle

Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 192 // Week 28 // 2020

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Saturday Pentacle Weekly Newsletter - Banner
By Himanshu Sachdeva

Hello!

Last week went fast for me as I had been working on multiple creative works. My first short podcasting course is out! (Check out the playlist at the end of this page), a new podcast episode is launching in this week and another story coming soon in “Lifestyle Design in Action” series.

Plus I’m really excited about the interactive community we just launched on Vibely (app). Where we are starting up with Daily creative challenges for you all. So join in the fun (here is the special link for you to join)

Moving further, this year couldn’t get worse with all the unexpected things. Jagdeep (veteran actor) passed away this past week. I share about him in the 2nd point of today’s pentacle.

I focused on some exercise and meditation again this past week and tried centring my energy and focus. I’ve started going on long walks in night time (safe distance and when fewer people are there). The monsoons are here but we are just sitting home, it’s all that we wished for when we were in offices, but now as we are home, all we wish for is to go out! Life is such.

Coming to the book reading/listening progress, I listened to the Sherlock homes some more this past week and some of Atomic Habits –

  1. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – 70% done (Audible)
  2. Atomic Habits by James Clear – 70% done (Audible) – This audiobook is like a page-turner version for audio (I don’t know if there is a specific word for it for audiobooks, let me know in comments if there is).

That’s it for the personal updates.

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

Issue 192 // Week 28 // 2020

A tweet I found really insightful about meetings —

In the Work From Home era, meetings have increased drastically. But as an employer you should focus on how to reduce unnecessary meetings and as an employee you should think on the below points to make a meeting useful (if at all it was) –

A beloved veteran Bollywood actor who passed last week —

Jagdeep (Soorma Bhopali) passed away – A veteran actor famous for his roles like Soorma Bhopali passed away. I loved his Sholay performance so much.

His real name was Syed Ishtiaq Ahmed Jaffrey and he’s the father of actor, voice actor, dancer, comedian, impressionist – Javed Jaffrey.

May he rest in peace.

A new service I’m curious about —

Hey.com – It’s a fresh take on one of the most important communication mediums EMAIL.

Did they reinvent it?

Not exactly, but they considered all the thing wrong about the current email services and tried to fix them and it took them over 2 years to get most of the things right.

I loved all the subtle nuances it has, but it got a hefty price tag of $99/year! But if you are considerate of privacy and time and less frustration weighs more for you then money, then this is it. It’s a great email service.

Here is a detailed demo of the service (loved how the CEO himself gave the entire demo, shows that how passionate a founder CEO can be) –

Music I’m loving —

Songs of Innocence by U2 – Sifting through my iTunes playlists from 2014, I found the U2’s album which they launched in a big surprise at Apple’s fall event in 2014, Apple presented a free copy of U2 album ‘Songs of Innocence’ to everyone with an iTunes account. I still have that album on all my Apple Devices.

Here is the entire album’s playlist. If you are up for it! (I love it btw, it was my companion on my marathon training sessions in 2014~15) –

Quote which I found meaningful –

In matters of style swim with the current. In matters of principle, stand like a rock.

— Unknown

Before saying “see you next week”

I want to share my first short course on Podcasting in collaboration with LMT (Last Moment Tutions). If you are curious about podcasting, you should check it out. I share a beginners guide to podcasting in this 5+1 part video series.

Here is the YouTube Playlist of it (because short course is FREE, main course coming soon!) –

Until Next Saturday!

Thanks for reading.

Himanshu

About Author

I’m Himanshu Sachdeva, 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 192 // Week 28 // 2020

What to do Next?

If you are not signed up to my email list, go ahead and do it right now so that you don’t miss any new weekly SATURDAY PENTACLE post and more interesting emails on Lifestyle Design, Productivity and Creative Entrepreneurship. (plus new podcast episode announcements).

Just enter your email address below and click “Subscribe!”

Continue Reading