Atharva Raykar

The Internal Lever

Advice I would have given myself 10 years ago. A lot of people don't attend to "the internal lever" enough when dealing with life. This lever exists in you and not out in the world. It's easier to alter your inner world than it

Vocal fry and illusory unravelments

A friend recently pointed out that I have a discernable vocal fry. I had to look it up—a short description immediately made me understand that I had it. Vocal fry is the lowest register (tone) of your voice characterized by its deep, creaky, breathy sound. It's the

We, the Citizens and systems thinking

“No one can define or measure justice, democracy, security, freedom, truth, or love. No one can define or measure any value. But if no one speaks up for them, if systems aren’t designed to produce them, if we don’t speak about them and point toward their presence or

The Best Advice I Have Received (is often stupidly obvious)

The best kind of advice I have received in my life is so obvious that it feels stupid to say it out loud. Advice like this is often ridiculed online for being simplistic (and thus useless). I used to share this sentiment. But I don't anymore. Turns out,

2023

In memoriam of the year that won't exist anymore. <!--more--> Quality of life improvements (feel free to steal) * Writing more—enabled by this low-friction-to-post platform (writefreely). * Coffee brewing as a hobby for fun and mindfulness. You may substitute this with anything culinary. * Picking up Masala Lab

Charcoal

It was value education period (shortened to V. Ed.), sixth grade. The format deviated from the usual years where a teacher would be assigned to make us open our V. Ed. books to imbibe ourselves with holistic values to become good citizens. V. Ed. was weird as it was. I

I like Clojure

Programming language discourse is silly. It gives the impression that the language you use is the one important parameter with all the leverage when most people are working with hundreds or thousands of parameters. The art of software design is a quest to make robust analogies that transcend computation substrates

"A Pattern Language" explains why urban spaces disappoint me.

A Pattern Language is a beautiful tome on architecture and urban design that I found in my company's physical library. It had a pale yellow minimalist cover, a small form, and some blotchy typography accompanied by evocative photographs and lively doodles explaining the essence of its ideas. I

A caution against ephemeralization

These days I derive little joy from my possessions of necessity. Knowledge workers, over the last couple of decades, have traded the engagement of our senses for an upgrade in flexibility. I shall elaborate. Let's take a phone. Here's a rough chronology. Notice the gradual loss

Just the right amount of unpleasant

There's a pattern of things I predictably like—which I shall now call "just the right amount of unpleasant". Some examples to follow. Food and Beverage * Fermented, funky stuff—kimchi, kombucha, certain cheeses and curd have just the right amount of "spoilt" sourness to

Good art is compression

Is art paintings, sculpture, architecture, theatre, dance, film, poetry, literature, craft and criticism? It's hard to describe it in concretions. Sometimes concretions aren't enough. Let me try something more abstract—to me, good art is powerful compression. The human condition is vast and complex, the only

Games I used to play in my head, by myself

This is lifted from my old blog that's not around anymore (with some light edits). My default mental state is no longer weirdly existential. Although it's been a while since I've played some games in my head. It's the weekend. I sit