Manoj's Review on Books

The title of the book is definitely intriguing if not provoking, how can someone be against empathy? It’s the ability to feel the pain, happiness or other forms of emotions experienced by another fellow human. The definition itself will provide sufficient defence in it’s favour while an argument against the said trait can at best be weak, which was my initial reaction. Having gone through Paul’s impressive online course on psychology, I was curious to understand his counterpoints.  When a large section of people have an inclination towards an emotional rather than rational appeal, can empathy prove to be an effective tool towards social equity. Empathy became a topic of discussion after a gun shootout against strangers by a juvenile student in the first decade of the 21st century. A clamorous public outcry with repeated media coverage of the said incident led to the projection of empathy as a critical tool for prevention of crimes thereby creating space for a fair and peaceful comm...

It was an interesting title that made me pick the book, more in anticipation of a funny novel that’s bound to showcase comical interplay of events between a couple and their relatives. However, once I dipped into the first few pages, it dawned on me that Oliver Sacks was a neurologist and am about to read interesting titbits of true stories cherry picked from the long list of the author’s patients. A curious case was brought in for Oliver’s diagnosis of the problem and identify a solution. The gentleman came in for a session with Oliver and exhibited remarkable expression of intelligence while having displayed noticeable competence towards his associated domain of work. Even after a long conversation no issues emerged to the surface until he was asked to recognize personalities. The gentleman was completely at sea and the idea of a face recognition seemed far fetched to him, a neurological condition named Prosopagnosia. As he turned to retreat back home after the session, he strangely...

  Chris Voss had spent 24 years in the FBI with a predominant role of negotiating life threatening hostage situations. Contrary to negotiation involving a business deal or even a low stake rental agreement, a ransom demand in return for release of hostages is a different ball game altogether. However, Chris having negotiated countless hostage situations, picks up the nuances learnt during those tense encounters and draws a framework that can be applied in non hostile environments as well.  In the 1980’s, business schools even with the likes of Harvard proposed the theory that humans are rational actors and try to gain maximum value for themselves during a negotiation. However, research during subsequent decades proved to be contrary for the following reasons (i) Framing Effect - Depending on how a proposal is framed, the response evoked from the recipient can be different (ii) Loss Aversion - An inclination towards unwarranted risk for the sake of avoiding a loss (iii) Cogniti...

Whenever a group of Giraffes feed on the leaves of acacia trees, scientists observe an interesting response, they release toxic substances into their leaves to ward off the feeding animal. An appropriate response to save oneself but the sequence of response doesn’t stop at that point, the respective acacia tree emits a scent called pheromones. It’s meant to alert the neighbouring acacia trees of an upcoming danger in the form of Giraffe and the community soon begins to release toxins in their leaves. It’s a classic example of a synchronised community at work, leading to a flip in our understanding that trees are sentient beings after all.  When a caterpillar takes a hearty bite of a leaf, the damaged tissues around the leaf sends electrical signals on the negative impact. However, the signals are sent at the rate of a third an inch per minute which establishes the fact that they live on a really slow lane. More aligned towards Satyajit Ray’s mode of unhurried film making rather tha...

A look at a few of Brianna Wiest interviews makes one wonder how such a young individual who has barely crossed her thirties can exhibit calm demeanor to a stream of questions posed against her. A deeper dive into her writing journey stuns us with the fact she has already authored ten books, with a clear focus on the self help section.   'The Mountain is You’ can be broadly split into two parts, the first one deals with an individual's inclination towards self sabotage and the latter part narrates on ways towards self mastery. Now, what’s self-sabotage, if there is an ongoing gap between current and desired state while the respective individual’s effort to close it is consistently met with their own resistance, pain or discomfort, it means self-sabotage is a dominant function of mind. Brianna provides the bridge towards mastery in a three step process which leads to a transparent emotions assessment. (i) Be clear with what happened (ii) Validate your feeling (iii) Determi...

The clouds aspire to cover the entire mountain range and accomplish a wholesome deflection of sunshine. A glory that calls for all the fragmented floating cloud formations to come together. Umpteen times the pack of clouds are just able to patch over the mountains while the sun comfortably shines through. An united front on the troposhere proves to be elusive for month's together but the clouds perseveres through the separation.   Eventually, the clouds succeeds to roof over the mountains providing a seamless shield from the rays of the sun. Our fellow human beings refer to such an act as gloomy conditions, quiet an irony when even a little retrospection could lead us to understand the cloud cover is anything but gloomy.  Millions of positive and negative ions interact to strike a lightening horizontally establishing an united cloud formation. While a vertical strike signifies that the floodgates are open for trillions of tiny droplets to fall over the landmass bringing a...