What book could you read over and over again? In my life I’ve read many books. Maybe 5,000. Perhaps more. Perhaps even many more. None have captured, have indeed stirred my imagination into febrile action more than this saga. Patrick O’Brian was one of, if not the best illustrator of the Napoleonic Wars. In this … Continue reading Master and Commander
You’re going on a cross-country trip. Airplane, train, bus, car, or bike? Peripatetics is such a nice rounded word. Coming from the Ancient Greek peripatetikos, it signifies to walk up and down. It even branches out to Latin giving peripetia, which was enthusiastically adopted by Romanian as it stood for ages: peripetie. In Romanian, its … Continue reading On Peripatetics
What is one word that describes you? It’s in my blood. It’s in my veins. It’s in my genes. My grandmother was a quarter Serbian. Yugoslavia was the only country that managed to throw the German Army out on its own in WW2. My father was Armenian. They say it takes two Jews to take … Continue reading Relentless
What was the best compliment you've received? I love compliments. I am a vain person. Not a vainglorious one but definitely vain. My wife says I am quite narcissistic. Perhaps I am too. Having spent my entire life suffocated under Harkonnen-grade layers of fat, and after painstakingly digging myself out of the early grave I … Continue reading On The Power of Compliments
Who is the most confident person you know? Confidence is all. Whether we like it or not, confidence moves mountains. It makes women fall in love and lower their drawbridge for their knight in shining armour. It advances the human race by kickstarting the multiplication process so sought by people. It determines the winners of … Continue reading Confidence is All
Write a letter to your 100-year-old self. Do not be too harsh with others. Be harsh with yourself. Do not do to others what you wouldn’t like done onto you. Do not be hasty. Do not jump to conclusion. Do not put people or things on pedestals. Do not have any regrets for that which … Continue reading No Regrets
How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success? Life is a series of setbacks, blows, and defeats… interspersed with the occasional win for the home team. Go Wolverines! Failure is guaranteed. After all we all die eventually. It’s what you do with it, how you cope, how you pull yourself … Continue reading On Failure
You're writing your autobiography. What's your opening sentence? Cicero was a master of brevity. He once said vixerunt or “they lived” as an euphemism signalling the demise of the Catilinarian conspirators to the Roman Senate. To me, the unique appositeness of this word appealed for an altogether different reason. Life is meant to be enjoyed, … Continue reading Vixerunt
What experiences in life helped you grow the most? Pain is a natural fertilizer for personal growth. It’s not love, mind you. It’s relentless, ongoing emotional distress. Pain is to growth what water, manure and sun are to a plant or a tree. It’s what makes it grow into a splendid bush of roses or … Continue reading On Growth
Do you believe in fate/destiny? Yes, I do. Everything is fixed and we cannot change it. Entropy is everything. Mosaicism, Christianity, and Islam swear by it. What we do in life does echo in eternity, as Maximus so aptly put it. But our agency is confined to how we go about fulfilling our destiny. It’s … Continue reading On Predestination
Götterdämmerung 