Welcome. Good reading week! I find that I’m a little pedantic in this issue, but it may be just me who thinks so. Brain Pickings turned 12 last week, and I thought it would be a good time to share 10 Learnings from 10 Years of Brain Pickings here. It’s a piece of writing and advice that I go back to every few months, and it’s always enriching for my soul. Do you have something like that too, something you go back to and read/watch/listen to when you need a pick-me-up?

If you got this from a friend and want to subscribe, here’s the link. Also, if any of the links are paywalled and if you don’t want to pay for a subscription, try opening the link in incognito mode in your browser; it usually works. It does for me.

0. Other Newsletters

I was introduced to email newsletters a few months before I started this one, my own. Whether daily, weekly or monthly, they are a wonderful, deliberate and personal way of sharing writing, experiences, and curiosities. Over the next few weeks or months, I’ll share one or two of my favorite ones every week.

1. The Hidden Beauty of Peru’s Pigmented Potatoes

“No me lo esperaba (I wasn’t expecting it),” he says in an inaudible whisper, before repeating again that he didn’t expect it at all. Bravo doesn’t enjoy the spotlight. He’s much more comfortable on his family farm, surrounded by his tubers, working his magic one by one.

“In reality, I want to change the system,” he says. “The whole world thinks potatoes are just to fill up the belly. That’s a lie!”
So many potatoes! Lovely potatoes. Life-giving potatoes.

2. Why the UK has so many Words for Bread

I’m by default interested in all things bread, and so yes, I definitely want to know why there are a number of different words for bread through the UK. A number of interesting facts: south-east England has less variety in its names for bread because the urban sprawl homogenized names across places, and that two accepted synonyms for “bread roll” are “soft bap” and “crusty cob”, but still some people make disinctions between them. I suppose if you want to sell bread in the UK, you not only have to make it well, you also have to give it the right name.

Dr Blaxter goes on to note that “English does stand out among languages in the degree to which we’ve developed a culture of talking about ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ speech”, which makes me think that our fierce debates about bread aren’t really about bread; they’re about identity. After all, the words we use says a lot about us, and what strikes me as a northerner is that when compared to the south, the northern regions of the UK seem to have greater diversity when it comes to these enduring regionalisms.

3. Why Don’t We Fix Things Anymore?

A nice piece from CityLab about repair cafes being held in a bunch of places in the US. These cafes aim to teach people how to repair their minimally damaged electrical or electronic appliances by themselves. Don’t throw away your blow dryer if it’s got a loose connection somewhere: just solder the connection back instead. I find this pretty nice for two reasons: the first is that it’s important to not throw things away as soon as only one small component in them stops working, and the second is that repairing your own tools gives you almost magical satisfcation.

4. The Slum Residents Trying to Prevent a Water Crisis

This is from back home in India. It’s not a secret that the less privileged in life will bear more of the brunt of climate change than others. Cities in India are set to receive more and more migrants from rural areas; how can these cities possibly handle the burden? This article from BBC talks about Jai Hind camp, in Delhi, where residents have gotten together and made some social structures that enable more equitable distribution of water. I think the next real scarcity in the world will be that of clean water.

5. Billionaires Are the Leading Cause of Climate Change

A somewhat fitting sequel to the previous piece: I don’t agree with much of what this article says, but is it right to feel helpless as an individual consumer? Does this mean that no movement to reduce emissions can start from the ground up?

That’s largely because there is no “free market” incentive to prevent disaster. An economic environment where a company is only considered viable if it’s constantly expanding and increasing its production can’t be expected to pump its own brakes over something as trivial as pending global catastrophe. Instead, market logic dictates that rather than take the financial hit that comes with cutting profits, it’s more reasonable to find a way to make money off the boiling ocean. Nothing illustrates this phenomenon better than the burgeoning climate-change investment industry.

6. The Evolution of Virat Kohli

Lovely profile of Virat Kohli, Indian cricketer extraordinaire, and his ascent both through the ranks of cricketers worldwide, as well as in his own skill levels. I was particularly inspired by his seeminly limitless desire and willingness to learn. Why stop practising, if you can keep getting better? I don’t say this often, but: what a man. And if you are a cricket nerd, you will love the details in this essay: what grip Kohli uses, how he managed to play well in England yet maintain deft use of his wrists, how he converted his wristy off-side flick to a conventional and safe cover drive.


“The bottom-handed drive beside the body (left) leaves less scope for adjusting to late movement, than the top-handed drive in front of the body (right).”

7. You buy a Purse at Walmart. There’s a Note inside from a Chinese prisoner. Now what?

Every bit as wild as it sounds. What do you do when a cheap purse you buy has a note talking about the pathetic working conditions in Yingshan prison and about how the worker prisoners are treated like animals? Well, if you’re the author of this piece, then you go to China, find the aforementioned prison, and attempt to put two and two together. If it can have any use at all, it might be in influencing people to not buy cheap stuff which they don’t even need at all.

8. How I Learned to Love Bonsai

“When my amateur attempts at the art weren’t working, I went to YouTube star Nigel Saunders.”
Bonsai is an incredible art form. It’s the ultimate domestication of a plant to our desires; and the end results of having a scaled-down yet full-blown tree in a garden pot are mind-blowing.

The masters of bonsai—part artist, part gardener—twist, bind, break, bend, and manipulate some of Earth’s grandest natural creations to their will. In the wild, a coast redwood can grow as tall as a thirty-five-storey skyscraper; a single banyan tree, with its multiple root systems, can cover a couple of hectares. But as bonsai, these trees are never allowed to achieve their potential. They are living examples of the human desire to conquer nature; we are forcing a tree to grow on a windowsill in a pot the size of a cereal bowl. Bonsai are hubris writ miniature.

9. Why Kodak Died and Fujifilm Thrived: A Tale of Two Film Companies

Such a fascinating history. Kodak was the undisputed leader in its field until the whole industry was turned upside down on its head. Kodak wasn’t able to adapt well to the digital revolution, and never really seemed to realize that people just don’t print pictures out anymore. Fujifilm, on the other hand, did not have the attitude of incumbent champion, and this may be why it was able to adapt in ways so as to keep the group alive. It diversified into a number of new industries where its previous expertise would serve it well, with one surprising new industry being make-up. Keep moving. Don’t settle and become complacent.

10. Can a Cat Have an Existential Crisis?

The drugs we’ve developed for mental illnesses such as anxiety and depression were first tested on animals, like many of the drugs we use are. What do we do if animals, especially our pets, start showing signs of anxiety or depression? Why, give them medication for it.

That’s it. See you next week. - Kat.