Rishita Chaudhary
@rish_yossarian
multi-hyphenate
tech policy, media & society
Rishita Chaudhary
Our choices shape our circumstances which in turn further cement the foundation from which we make our choices. - Maria Popava
We navigate the unknown frontiers of the social universe through a sextant of existing relationships — nearly every new person we meet is within only a few degrees of separation from someone we already know. But every once in a while, pure chance intercedes to remind us that whatever structures of control we may put into place, however much we may
... See moreThis is the paradox of transformative experience: Because our imagination is bounded by our existing templates of how the world as we know it works, we fail to anticipate the greatest transformations — the events and encounters so unmoored from the familiar that they transfigure our map of reality and propel us into a wholly novel mode of being. -
... See moreTravel in both its literal and symbolic avatars is the process of acquiring cognitive empathy. When you visit somewhere with different norms to those that you have known so far, the realization dawns that those norms are not “normal.” Every person’s experience of the world is particular, but this specificity only becomes obvious when another way of... See more
7. Stories trump information
Stories have closure. This is what sets them apart from ‘“information’, which is by its nature partial, incomplete, fragmentary. Susan Sontag argues this is the ‘moral obligation’ of a writer: to tell stories, because stories will hold our attention and allow us to make moral judgments—not just about what is better ,... See more
Stories have closure. This is what sets them apart from ‘“information’, which is by its nature partial, incomplete, fragmentary. Susan Sontag argues this is the ‘moral obligation’ of a writer: to tell stories, because stories will hold our attention and allow us to make moral judgments—not just about what is better ,... See more
17 things I learned about life by mainlining Maria Popova’s website
the very capacity for joy and wonder that makes life worth living — for, as Annie Dillard memorably put it, “how we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”
Maria Popova • 17 Life-Learnings From 17 Years of the Marginalian
What is something new you’ve done recently?
I have taken up flying trapeze – an aria of joy with existential undertones. Up there, you can’t be a Cartesian divide, a mind commanding a body – you are thrust into total integration, working with the most fundamental elements: gravity, consciousness, and time. You learn to balance strength and trust,... See more
I have taken up flying trapeze – an aria of joy with existential undertones. Up there, you can’t be a Cartesian divide, a mind commanding a body – you are thrust into total integration, working with the most fundamental elements: gravity, consciousness, and time. You learn to balance strength and trust,... See more
Maria Popova • Orion Magazine | Nature, Culture & Place
There is still a drastic mismatch between the cultural script around marriage, in which a man grudgingly acquiesces to a woman salivating for a diamond, and the reality of marriage, in which men’s lives often get better an women’s lives often get worse. Married men report better mental health and live longer than single men; in contrast, married... See more
Just a moment...
“I wonder how much harder it would be to get straight women to accept the reality of marriage if they were not first presented with the fantasy of a wedding. I wonder if women today would so readily accept the unequal diminishment of their independence without their sense of self-importance being overinflated first. It feels like a trick, a trick... See more