Today's an additional day off as declared by the senior of senior management, and it explains why I'm sitting here at home, ``enjoying'' the cloyingly muggy-ass weather.
Sleep is something that is really important to me these days. I find that for each day where I don't get enough sleep (``enough'' being at least 6.5 hours), I tend to start the day really groggy. It gets a little mitigated with the amounts of caffeine I imbibe through the dual outcome of regular caffeining up and clearing out the old stock of 3-in-1 instant coffee satchets in the office (if I don't drink it, it will just be wasted when expired), but like all regular caffeine users, that ``high'' eventually goes away over repeated use due to the body developing resistance to it.
This means that by around 1400hrs, I would start to lose it, despite having yet another milder boost at around 1230hrs or so.
I think I need to take this more seriously, especially since I have started to incorporate alternate-day cycling trips that make use of the modified Northeast Riverine Loop. That loop is roughly 12 mi long (around 18+ km, both numbers pulled from the direct measurement via the GPSr), and takes me about an hour or so to clear. There are surprisingly few stoppage areas throughout the route, most of which occur due to how diversions to the Loop take one out into the main road areas, where clueless pedestrians and lawless food delivery ``heroes'' (or was it just... gangsters?) amble/charge about with zero situation awareness and complete ignorance of basic road etiquette (keep left unless overtaking, and no surprising movements). It's my go-to route in general, due to the lessened need of dealing with people in general.
Tangents aside, having this aggressive of a physical activity schedule for a generally sedentary me means that sleep to clear the brain of waste particles becomes more important than before.
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In other news, I have finally powered through all 18 books of the Mahabharata. Man, what a head trip that was, and this is considering that I have read both The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night and The Illuminatus! Trilogy (not to mention The Holy Bible).
Where do I start?
I suppose we can begin with recommendation. Do I recommend it as reading material for someone? Probably not, particularly if one is operating mostly in the anglosphere. The cultural references are more obscure as compared to the other works in a similar genre [of head trips], and it does get rather preachy at times. Much of the earlier parts of the Mahabharata make little sense until the depiction of the Kurukshetra War, where the seemingly disparate characters are brought together into a great narrative of conflict between the righteous and the unrighteous.
Of particular note is the character of Bhishma (who is very different from Bhima, a son of Pandu). To aid those who want to read the Mahabharata, I just want to point out that Bhishma's appearance in so many disparate places across a loooooong period of time is not merely an accidental appearance of someone with a similar name, it is literally still him throughout. Just keep that in mind, and things will be less confusing.
Oh and Arjuna has many names... not just him, but many of the other [major] characters have multiple names too. Just keep them straight in one's head and it will be alright. Maybe.
It was definitely an eye-opening read, with every translated line oozing with what I think to be the essence of the culture of the people of then. There are fantasy-like moments the way much of important old writing has (I suspect ``non-fiction'' the way we know it came about only from the scientific enlightenment period onwards), but the cosmology has a certain system in it that makes it easier to see what it means to be a follower of the gods of that time.
That's all I want to write about the Mahabharata though... it's fast become unbearably warm, and the only good response to that is a siesta.
Till the next update then.
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