Jophin Mathai

@jofmat.bsky.social

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philanthropy, education, social mobility, careers, social change | I read, write, listen

"When we use another, we have only the picture of the end to be gained. The end, the gain, prevents relationship, communion." (Jiddu Krishnamurti, The Book of Life)
Resistance is first of all a matter of principle and a way to live, to make yourself one small republic of unconquered spirit. You hope for results, but you don't depend on them. - Rebecca Solnit, ‘Hope in the Dark’
Sher (by Dushyant Kumar) kaise aakash mein suraakh nahin ho sakta ek patthar toh tabiyat se uchhalo yaaron Who said one can't make a hole in the sky? Throw at least one stone with the right intention, friends
From the Atlantic article: The Age of Reading Is Over Reading has never been natural. Humans have no innate cognitive machinery designed to string letters into words and connect them to their real-world analogues. To read, people had to repurpose regions of their brain used for speech and object recognition. The practice first emerged 6,000 years ago in Mesopotamia. For millennia afterward, most of the population was illiterate. Literacy became a mass phenomenon relatively recently, after Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press in 1440. Rose Horowitch
"Remaining neutral has always been a game outside of time. I don’t dance to your time—for a certain time, at least. But I can measure it out for you, if you’re willing to pay, I’ll time it with a stopwatch (Swiss-made, of course) and I’ll sell you clocks, I’ll guard your paintings, rings, diamonds, and all your baggage, while you’re off playing or fighting. No objection could be made to that." (Georgi Gospodinov, Time Shelter)
Review streak of 2000 days on the Readwise app.
The ‘Dancing Girl’, a 2600 BCE bronze figurine from the Harappan civilisation, on display at the National Museum, Delhi.
"The relational aspect of human powers suggests that our relations with others are really important for determining our individual and collective powers. Who and what we connect and relate to, and how we do so, profoundly affects what we can do and become." (Paul Raekstad and Sofia Saio Gradin, Prefigurative Politics)
KEY MESSAGES GDP shows what we produce. It doesn't show what we value. Better decisions require better measures. The Beyond GDP dashboard provides them, and we can start using it now. We now have a practical blueprint to measure regularly what truly drives well-being for people and planet. Delay in adopting better measures of progress is no longer an option. The cost is borne today and by future generations.
Pet Grooming Studio called ‘Pawhub’ with a logo styled according to the icon of Pornhub, a porn site.
New Report: 'Trusting Agency, Shifting Perceptions: Donor Motivations for Supporting Unconditional Cash Transfers in India'
Book cover of ‘Gods and Ends’ by Lindsay Pereira
"And in time we come to see that not only are we on the sidelines of the universe but that it’s of a universe of sidelines, that there is no centre, just a giddy mass of waltzing things, and that perhaps the entirety of our understanding consists of an elaborate and ever-evolving knowledge of our own extraneousness, a bashing away of mankind’s ego by the instruments of scientific enquiry until it is, that ego, a shattered edifice that lets light through." (Samantha Harvey, Orbital)
Meme: “What a year, huh?” “Captain, it’s just March.”
"Stopping is also to see, and seeing helps to stop. The two are one. We do so much, we run so quickly, the situation is difficult, and many people say, “Don’t just sit there, do something.” But doing more things may make the situation worse. So you should say, “Don’t just do something, sit there.”" (Thich Nhat Hanh, Being Peace)
Meet Einstein Einstein is an Al with a computer. He logs into Canvas every day, watches lectures, reads essays, writes papers, participates in discussions, and submits your homework — automatically. Get started How it works Einstein has a ful virtual comouter with a browser - anvthina you can do. he can dol Has his own computer Einstein isn't a chatbot. He has a full virtual computer — he can browse the web, watch videos, read PDFs, and interact with any site just like you Logs into Canvas for you Einstein connects to your Canvas account, sees your assignments, and submits completed work — automatically Watches lectures & videos Reads & writes essays Give him a reading assignment and he reads the full text, understands it, and writes original essays with proper Participates in discussions Discussion board posts, peer replies, forum response Every subject covered Math, physics, CS, history, literature, econ — if it's on Canvas, Einstein can handle it. Works while you sleep Set him up and forget about it. Einstein checks for new assignments and knocks them out before the No more copy-pasting Forget switching between ChatGR and your LMS. Einstein reads the directly. Telegram & Discord too Optionally connect Telegram or Discord to message Einstein on th - check deadlines, ask questions, tell him to skip one.
"The most effective censorship is endogenous," says Geeta Seshu, co-founder of the Free Speech Collective. Having tracked this institutional erosion for decades, she notes that the state has successfully offloaded the labor of suppression onto the journalists themselves. "It is invisible. It's the reporter who stops pitching because they've internalized the boundaries of the permissible. It's the editor running mental simulations of state retaliation before a single word is printed."
Censorship in contemporary India rarely announces itself. It does not arrive as a ban on books or a formal prohibition on speech. Instead, it operates through procedure. Through complaints, inquiries, notices, and committees. Through reputational anxiety and institutional caution. Through the quiet reclassification of disagreement as disruption, and critique as liability.
"“The crisis. It’s everywhere now, in the air, in our banks, crawling through our blood if you’re living near the wrong ticks or mosquitoes. I knew all this was coming, but I always had that thought in the back of my mind, you know? That there would be someplace to escape, someplace safe. But there’s not. There’s just not.”" (Stephen Markley, The Deluge)
From the introduction to the book: "I was struck by the modernity that jazz anticipated and directed, and by its unreasonable optimism. Whatever the truth or consequences of individual entanglements and the racial landscape, the music insisted that the past might haunt us, but it would not entrap us. It demanded a future—and refused to regard the past as “…an abused record with no choice but to repeat itself at the crack and no power on earth could lift the arm that held the needle.”" (Toni Morrison, Jazz)
People who call for unity and civility just mean to shut up and accept the status quo. No justice had ever been won without making someone uncomfortable. Civility isn't a goal of politics, it is a tool used to prevent goals from being accomplished. @existential cons
"if our whole lives are in The Cave, then how do we know what’s outside of it is better or even different? Like, what if after this cave there’s just another cave? Or what if it’s just… nothing?" (Kyle Seibel, Hey You Assholes)
"The struggle for resource sovereignty threatened the dominion of the North Atlantic world over the resources of the rest of the world, which they had hitherto claimed as their own. From the moment that formerly colonised nations gained a degree of sovereignty over their own natural resources, they have struggled against Western powers to control the extraction of those resources on the global market." (Laleh Khalili, Extractive Capitalism)
Kumi, what do you think is the biggest contribution you can give to the cause of humanity?' With no hesitation, I replied, 'Giving your life. Lenny looked at me and then asked, 'You mean going and getting killed and becoming a martyr?' "Yes,' I replied. Lenny was quiet for a bit, then he said, 'No, Kumi, that's the wrong answer. It's not giving your life, but giving the rest of your life.' Letters to My Mother Kumi Naidoo
two questions orient the arc of this book. First, how should we diagnose and conceptualize the temporal domination of racial injustice? Second, if we have internalized this form of life then with what resources can we develop principles for a transformed and free form of life that we have never experienced? These two questions bind together "critical theory" and "utopia" to develop both a novel account of injustice and the principles of a not yet experienced freedom. Race, Time, and Utopia William M. Paris
"To guarantee at least a basic level of social security through a social protection floor, low- and middle-income countries require an additional US$1.4 trillion or 3.3 per cent of the aggregate GDP (2024) of these countries per annum, composed by 2.0 per cent of GDP or US$833.4 billion for essential health care and 1.3 per cent of GDP or US$552.3 billion for five social protection cash benefits. More specifically, low-income countries would need to invest an additional US$308.5 billion per year, equivalent to 52.3 per cent of their GDP, which is unfeasible in the short term without international support." (ILO, ILO Flagship Report - WRSP 2024-26)
"The climate crisis can only be overcome through common effort but with differentiated responsibility proportional to capacity. It needs to be recognized that special remedial responsibility lies with those primarily responsible for the crisis. This has major implications for financing social protection at the domestic level, and for the role of international financial support for countries with insufficient economic and fiscal capacities that have contributed least to the crisis but are bearing its brunt. This constitutes a key element of social justice." (ILO Flagship Report - WRSP 2024-26)
"If survival always involves others, it is also necessarily subject to the indeterminacy of self-and-other transformations." (Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, The Mushroom at the End of the World)
"If huge numbers of people are, in fact, not going to be able to sustain themselves through productive work—or not in conditions other than deprivation and bare survival — what comes next? After imminent development must be —can only be —a politics of distribution: a struggle over who will have access to a share of global wealth and income, on what grounds, and who will be excluded." (Tania Murray Li, After Development: Surplus Population and the Politics of Entitlement)
"The relational aspect of human powers suggests that our relations with others are really important for determining our individual and collective powers. Who and what we connect and relate to, and how we do so, profoundly affects what we can do and become." (Paul Raekstad and Sofia Saio Gradin, Prefigurative Politics)
Photo of football players Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez doing a puja with Anant Ambani and Radhika Ambani.
"Living all of your life staring into a smartphone in a megacity and eating prepared fast food without ever knowing where it comes from and how it is produced does not mean that some holy bond between you and nature has been broken; it just means that your individual metabolism is mediated by a complex system of infrastructures, data, machines, financial flows, and planetary supply chains." (Søren Mau, Mute Compulsion)
"I *have* beliefs. There's a *reason* why I won't give the beggar all of my money. Yes, I'm going to give her *some* of it—I always give away quite a surprising amount to people who have less than I do— But there's a reason why *I'm* the one who *has* the money in the *first* place, and *that's* why I'm not going to give it all away. In other words, for God's sake, I *worked* for that money. I worked hard. I worked. I worked. I worked hard to make that money, and it's my money, because I made it. I made the money, and so I have it, and I can spend it any way I like. This is the basis of our entire lives." (Wallace Shawn, The Fever)
Air Quality Index of 688, considered ‘Hazardous’.
"My commitment was to writing. To being a writer, not a leader or an activist. To do that I could not be weighed down by the burden of a “following,” or of fulfilling people’s expectations. I had to have the right to be unpopular. I had to have the choice of probing the boundaries of acceptability, of not fitting in, of standing alone." (Arundhati Roy, Mother Mary Comes to Me)
If you are aware of what is going on, then you can see problems as they unfold, and you can help prevent many of lem. When things explode, it is too late. How we deal with our daily lives is the most important question. How we deal with our feelings, our speaking, with ordinary things every day is just meditation. We must learn to apply meditation in our daily lives. Being Peace Thich Nhat Hanh
"A skill is something you know how to do. Skill in writing frees you to write what you want to write. It may also show you what you want to write. Craft enables art." (Ursula K. Le Guin, Steering the Craft)
"Tennis, school, Sheryl McGilicutty’s coochie outlined by a wet bikini—these were all big nothings in a world that could snatch a father away so cruelly, so prematurely." (Abraham Verghese, Abscond)
"Love is never enough. Madness is enough. It is complete, sufficient unto itself. You can only stand outside it, as a woman might stand outside a prison in which her lover is locked up. From time to time, a well-loved face will peer out and love floods back. A scrap of cloth flutters and it becomes a sign and a code and a message and all that you want it to be. Then it vanishes and you are outside the dark tower again." (Jerry Pinto, Em and the Big Hoom)
"Things can seem so bleak, history so empty of content, the shock of the New such a distant memory that the possibility of some radical break or rupture towards the Utopian (or even just for the better) can all too easily simply come off as naive optimism. However, Bloch’s point about nonsynchronicity shows us that the past is in some way still with us, we live in its ruins and from those ruins the future is not something enforced by teleological systems but is something made and remade too." (Jonathan Greenaway, A Primer on Utopian Philosophy)
Cover of the book 'Mad About Cuba' by Ullekh NP.
"In Greek, the word derives from apokaluptein, which means to “uncover” or “reveal.” Originally the word meant a vision of the future, a revelation about what was to come." (Steven Charleston, We Survived the End of the World)
Snippet from opinion piece: How did Mr. Epstein manage to pull so many strangers close? The emails reveal a barter economy of nonpublic information that was a big draw. This is not a world where you bring a bottle of wine to dinner and that's it. You bring what financiers call "edge" — proprietary insight, inside information, a unique takeaway from a conference, a counterintuitive prediction about A.l., a snippet of conversation with a lawmaker, a foretaste of tomorrow's news.
"Beyond the high walls and barbed wire and checkpoints that pen this place, there is the empire. And the empire as well is cocooned inside its own fortress of language—a language through the prism of which buildings are never destroyed but rather spontaneously combust, in which blasts come and go like Chinooks over the mountain, and people are killed as though to be killed is the only natural and rightful ordering of their existence. As though living was the aberration." (Omar el Akkad, One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This)
"Then is the opposite of now. So saying now obliterates its meaning, turning it into exactly what it isn’t. It’s like the word is committing suicide or something. So then I’d start making it shorter . . . now, ow, oh, o . . . until it was just a bunch of little grunting sounds and not even a word at all. It was hopeless, like trying to hold a snowflake on your tongue or a soap bubble between your fingertips. Catching it destroys it, and I felt like I was disappearing, too." (Ruth Ozeki, A Tale for the Time Being)
Little events, ordinary things, smashed and reconstituted. Imbued with new meaning. Suddenly they become the bleached bones of a story. The God of Small Things Arundhati Roy
part of what I seek to show is that while capitalist societies have allowed some degree of mobility regarding social class, this has only meant that domination shifts more towards neurodivergence rather than diminishing overall. This, I argue, undermines the last promise of capitalism, which purports to help us approach a meritocracy where free individuals are valued not by their inherited status but by their virtues and how hard they work. Empire of Normality Robert Chapman
Weddings are hard. The drink flows and the words come out and he has to be there. A man loses his daughter to a younger man. A woman sees her son throwing himself away on a lesser woman. It is something they half believe. There's the expense, the sentiment, the no going back. Any time promises are made in public, people cry. Walk the Blue Fields Claire Keegan
"The feeling that she had never really lived in this world caught her by surprise. It was a fact. She had never lived. Even as a child, as far back as she could remember, she had done nothing but endure. She had believed in her own inherent goodness, her humanity, and lived accordingly, never causing anyone harm. Her devotion to doing things the right way had been unflagging, all her success had depended on it, and she would have gone on like that indefinitely. She didn’t understand why, but faced with those decaying buildings and straggling grasses, she was nothing but a child who had never lived." (Han Kang, The Vegetarian)
"How often in his life he has found himself a frustrated observer of apparently impenetrable systems, watching other people participate effortlessly in structures he can find no way to enter or even understand. So often that it’s practically baseline, just normal existence for him. And this is not only due to the irrational nature of other people, and the consequent irrationality of the rules and processes they devise; it’s due to Ivan himself, his fundamental unsuitedness to life." (Sally Rooney, Intermezzo)
"More insidious than the raw structural constraints exerted by the foundation/state/non-profit nexus is the way in which this new industry grounds an epistemology—literally, a way of knowing social change and resistance praxis—that is difficult to escape or rupture." (Incite!, The Revolution Will Not Be Funded)
"Oppressive power is preserved in the smoke and fog, and sometimes it is smuggled in the unexamined shadows of the language of the oppressed themselves." (Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Message)
"It wasn’t as though we didn’t know how overwhelmingly the army outnumbered us. But the strange thing was, it didn’t matter. Ever since the uprising began, I’d felt something coursing through me, as overwhelming as any army. Conscience. Conscience, the most terrifying thing in the world." (Han Kang, Human Acts)
While an exaggerated sense of our own importance is a recipe for both political and psychological disaster, it is also possible to overestimate our insignificance. Acceptance shades easily into excuse. With enough practice tolerating imperfection you can learn to forget what it is you're failing to live up to. When those expectations include owning a vacation home or winning a Nobel Prize, letting go might be healthy - but doing so is tragic when they include stopping a genocide or ending homelessness. If that seems like an unreasonable standard to hold ourselves to, it is only because so few of us today have experienced the way that participating in the exercise of collective power can augment and extend our personal agency. Erik Baker
"If we could understand and love the infinity of agonies which languish around us, all the lives which are hidden deaths, we should require as many hearts as there are suffering beings. And if we had a miraculously present memory which sustained the totality of our past pains, we should succumb beneath such a burden. Life is possible only by the deficiencies of our imagination and our memory." (E. M. Cioran, A Short History of Decay)
In the first place, what, in any case, is a grievance - an articulated demand, based on political knowledge, an undirected complaint arising out of everyday experience, a vague feeling of unease or sense of deprivation? Second, and more important, is it not the supreme and most insidious exercise of power to prevent people, to whatever degree, from having grievances by shaping their perceptions, cognitions and preferences in such a way that they accept their role in the existing order of things, either because they can see or imagine no alternative to it, or because they see it as natural and unchangeable, or because they value it as divinely ordained and beneficial? - Power: A Radical View, by Steven Lukes
Book cover of ‘Shut Down the Business School’ by Martin Parker.
Cover of Ullekh NP’s book ‘Mad About Cuba’.