Review of "Shoe Dog" by Phil Knight

I came by this book on "Gatesnotes", blog of Bill Gates, where he routinely shares ideas and reviews of his favorite and recently-read books. The book is written very expressively with a wee bit of humor here and there. The outset is very vibrant where the author reveals his experience and highlights of a world tour which he went at the age of twenty-four in 1962 with a destined and steadfast goal- to sell shoes. With this plan, he visited shoe companies in Japan and finally placed an order of $50, borrowed from his father. The rest of the book unravels the journey from being $50 indebted to being worth $160 billion.The hardship, entrepreneurship, the spirit of never-giving-up and the belief in one's dream are the cornerstones of mighty Nike. But the most vital reason for Nike to prosper and sometimes to stay the course is its outstanding team consisting of compatible and talented members. The inclination to embrace the trends and innovation essentially cemented its competitiveness.

Author's writing was primarily good, but lengthy and tedious in some parts which could have been curtailed easily.

Divisible Death

Your soul is the prisoner
And the prison are your cells,
Escaping is not the panacea
For any of the agonies and distress.
Because death is not extreme
And neither do you die once-
Ask yourself how many times you already died.
How many times you felt you are holding
Your heart in your unflinching hands
While running to catch your last hope?
How many times you were choked by all those people around you,
And against you
When you stood up to speak?
And how many times your body
Healed the cuts and bruises
Adorning the facade, betraying your wish?
How many times you wanted to scream
Only to realize your vocal cords were filled with
Social norms and propriety?

Escaping the body would be easy;
Let your soul tame the body.

You do not die once,
Neither do you die completely-
Like every other being
Like every other animal, tree and energy.

Look at all the stars;
They glimmer and multiply,
Rejoice and die,
A divisible death, transforming into matter and energy.
Wait, you are made of those stars,
They make the nucleus
Of every cell of your body
Made of some protein from the same A, C, T, G

Review of " Thinking, Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman

This is one intriguing tale of how two thinking processes of human mind shape every decision we make from the everyday ones, such as, which peanut butter to buy to somewhat more significant ones like which treatment to choose for a patient or which saving plan to enter into. The author defines and explores two ways of thinking: fast and slow, where the first process is intuition-driven and the later is deliberate and logic-induced. But there is no definite border beyond which the territory of only one system lies and inside of which lies the another one's. Hence the interplay and influences between the systems become dramatic and this is what the book delineated with great deliberation and enthusiasm. Lots of relatable and familiar situations are explored and dissected which give life to the book and make it non-tedious.

"Although system 2 believes itself to be where the action is", the automatic system 1, the intuition-driven one, "is the hero of the book". Because system 2's conscious reasoning takes input from the system 1 where the impressions, feelings have already been created. So the slow thinking is ought to be biased since the fast thinking has its own likings and dislikings, some come with us when we are born and some are cultivated and sculpted by experience.

Finally, the author talks about how we can get rid of some biases that we tend to overlook, not because we are nonchalant to those but because we do not identify with them with our limited rationality and inherent indolence of system 2 to make careful consideration and calculation.

Lastly, after reading the book, I came to conclude that we have at least two systems guiding our thoughts, not only two.

Of Miracle And Reality

The wall was building

Between you and your dear yearning

To see the crisp summer entering your door,

But succeeded the cancer in distressing your soul.

One brick was still left to be placed on the wall

One angel was still crying

And beseeching for its removal.

Alas, you did not believe in me,

Your eyes declined to see.

I was miracle;

When the lights went out in meandering street—

I was about to happen.

I would just be passing by

But you gave in to what your eyes see,

What your progenitors had passed on,

Or what your friends did fear.

You gave up your destiny,

In the name of norms and normality.