Searching for meaning, on insulin insensitivity and some more on sleep
Short summary of some stories and a book that I read last week:
- I guess we all hate long flights. However, there is something about being seated in a compartment for 10 hours, away from any perceivable distractions (except for the movies). While flying to L.A. last weekend, I was holed up in the air for a long stretch. Despite the comfortless setting, I was happy that I got the opportunity to read uninterrupted. And that’s what I did: I read a book that has long been waiting on my table. A book so light that it could be read in one sitting, but so gravid with substance that I had been avoiding it. The book is Victor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning. This is a book read by the millions, and I assume many of you have done so too. For me though, it was the first time that I read it. I won’t even try to recommend this book – that’s a given – the only thing I could do is to recommend reading it when the time is right. And what’s the right time? When you feel down and out in the pits. When you are searching for a reason to carry on. This book will give you hope. What could have been a long account of life in concentration camps, has been distilled into a few instances, as if the author – who lived through these events – was sitting right in front and giving you a talk. No, not talking, but advising. An advice on how to live your life. For instance, Frankl writes, “Live as you were living for the second time and had acted as wrongly the first time as you are about to act now”. A sense of purpose propels us forward, Frankl believes. It could be meaning in the work we do, or in what we have experienced (for instance, love), and in suffering. The last being the hardest, and at times, the most opaque to decipher. That’s where the horrific stories from the concentration camps come in. They are laced with hope – hope that even in suffering one can find meaning to live and help others to do the same.
- I discovered a new podcast/newsletter series focused deeply on the topic of health. This one is run by Peter Attia. Attia is an MD and former McKinsey consultant. The aim of his interviews and deep dives centre on the topic of how to live longer, and how to live better. What hooked me to this series was this Ted talk by Attia that I stumbled across. The talk is on the related topics of insulin insensitivity, obesity and diabetes, and given that I have worked in the field of diabetes myself, I got interested. That led me to Peter’s podcast and newsletters, which are a trove of interesting deep dives on various health related topics. These talks and write-ups are littered with heavy medical terms but that shouldn’t dissuade you, for Attia still keeps them at a level enough that a novice can pick up the topic. I have not heard them all yet, however, I spent three hours listening to the three series interview of Matthew Walker on sleep (this links to the first part only). I have written about Matt Walker here and about the thriving business of sleep here earlier. But running the risk of sounding repetitive, I re-stress the point that sleep is perhaps the most neglected health issue that we all are facing. I recommend listening to Attia’s interview with Walker if you wish to learn deeply about the aspects of sleep and how lack of it may lead to insulin insensitivity, obesity, cancer and Alzheimer’s disease. There is a lot going on in these interviews for me to summarise. But the fundamental takeaway is that unless you have a rare gene result of which you can survive on sleeping little, you need 7-9 hours of sleep daily. Anything less is playing havoc with your body. I learnt the hard way when I survived on five hours or so of sleep for four years, and that’s why this topic is close to me.
- A lot of us are curious about how Softbank – the investor behind Uber, Lyft and the ill-fated WeWork – works. If you are searching for a good primer then this piece that came out in FT is a good one. It is critical of the management of Softbank’s founder, Son, and his management team (roots in Deutsche Bank) that has relied heavily on financial engineering resulting in a maverick and complicated structure of its funds. Looking back its easy to connect some of the dots, and to point out that trouble had started brewing when Alok Sama and Nikesh Arora had abruptly quit Softbank months ago. Anyhow, this may all be a temporary glitch as Softbank has its biggest backer, Crown Prince Mohamad bin Salman, still supporting them.
A quote that I came across last week:
He who has a ‘why’ to live for can bear almost any ‘how’
- Nietzsche (This quote deserves a context. I had come across it earlier but when Frankl quoted it in his book, the depth of it, considering Frank’s own experiences became apparent)
