Yana's Reveries

The first quarter of 2026, in books and thoughts

Saiyana Ramisetty — Sat, 11 Apr 2026 19:30:10 GMT

Dear, wherever you are reading this from, thank you for making space for my words in your inbox. This is my little quarterly round-up. It is really just my way of leaving a trail for myself. If anything strikes, I am always happy to exchange a conversation. I am noticing again that what stays with me is not always the “big” idea of a book or a myth. Most of the thinking happens in the margins.

Virgin who unites the knots of Purgatory by Laura Makabresku

Dispatches that went out this quarter

#1 — There is a thing called a brain. Do not stop using it. It will surprise you more than AI.

Cognitive offloading is different from cognitive surrender. And then I sit with the question that scares me most: not that the tool will be smarter than us, but that we will get used to not thinking, and call it progress.

#2 — An essay after reading John Berger’s Ways of Seeing.

Seeing is never innocent. The essay moves through that narrowing act of looking, the strange loop of being perceived, and the difficulty of carrying a fluid, ocean-like interior world into words without shrinking it into buckets. And somewhere in that struggle, I end up at why we make anything at all.

#3 — The Greek Dispatches: The war gets its first weapon, a golden apple

At the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, parents of Achilles, Eris, goddess of discord, throws a golden apple into the room. It poses a simple, public question: who is the most beautiful? Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite cannot ignore it. A wedding party becomes a contest. Zeus opts out, pushing the responsibility of judgment into a mouth that isn’t his. The apple becomes the war’s first weapon.

#4 — The Greek Dispatches: The war begins upstairs

Paris must choose between three goddesses. Each offer is a promise about what Paris gets to have and who Paris gets to be. Paris chooses what he wants most, and a private desire turns into a public war. Hera and Athena offer him futures that require a new self. Aphrodite wins because her offer doesn’t require Paris to become someone new. This essay is about the difference between becoming and admitting. About offers that change you versus offers that reveal you.

#5 — The Greek Dispatches: Let me be your muse

Zeus makes Aphrodite desire a mortal, Anchises, and the seduction turns toward fear, because beauty in Greek myth always carries danger. So I end up thinking about what desire demands of us once it enters our life. How it binds, how it makes us vulnerable, how it smuggles loss into love.

#6 — What if most of what I am preparing for never happens?

A note before you read: This is about my relationship with anxiety and imagined catastrophe, but I am writing it for anyone who has spent their days bracing for disasters that rarely arrive. If you are like me, then first for all, I understand you.

#7 — Midnight scribbles: Wanting but flinching, do you too?

I write about how easy it is to become a spectator of one’s own life, to keep preparing for living, imagining living, planning living, and still postponing the thing itself.

Thank you for being here and reading alongside me.

I will post another letter next quarter on what I am reading, writing, and thinking. Until then, take care.

Yours in thought,
Yana

I no longer wish to think for myself

Saiyana Ramisetty — Sat, 11 Apr 2026 18:00:29 GMT

Cognitive offloading is different from cognitive surrender.

In my own thoughts, if I have to define offloading, I would say it is what notebooks, calendars, search engines, maps, and libraries have always been for. You put something down somewhere else so your mind can move on to what it is actually trying to do. But surrendering is a dangerous slip. It is the moment the tool stops being a place you store your thoughts and becomes the place your thoughts come from. Cognitive surrender is the same as saying “I no longer wish to think for myself”.

I read an article recently that pushed me into this line of thinking again, though the real push was not the article itself so much as the feeling I had while reading it.

Article link: Thinking—Fast, Slow, and Artificial: How AI is Reshaping Human Reasoning and the Rise of Cognitive Surrender

We are tired, we are under constant pressure, we are being measured, we are being asked to produce something, anything, in a world that rewards output and often does not care what kind of thinking produced it. In that environment, surrender feels such a relief and sometimes disguised competence. Because you have an answer, you can move faster, and you can stop struggling. Basically, offloading is help, and surrender is substitution.

There are days when I need something outside my brain to hold onto details because my brain is busy trying to see a pattern. When I take notes while reading, I am offloading. When I make a list, I am offloading. When I use a tool to retrieve a quote or summarize a section I already understand, I am offloading.

The point is not that I am outsourcing the act of understanding, but that I am giving my attention back to the part that matters. Think of it as clearing a table so I can actually work on it. Surrender, though, happens when the table is already set for you, and you stop noticing that you never chose what meal you wanted.

A lot of our current conversation about AI confuses these two states because we are obsessed with capability. We ask whether the model is smart, whether it can reason, whether it can write better than us, whether it will replace this profession or that. What we miss is that capability is not the only thing at stake, and the deeper risk is not that AI will be better at thinking than humans, but that humans will get used to not thinking, and then call that progress.

What makes this tricky is that AI is genuinely good at something that looks like thinking from the outside. It surprises me how it can produce fluent explanations, generate plausible plans, give me working code for an entire app in short time, stitch together arguments in a way that feels coherent and good. But there is this eerie feeling, intellectually, that it might be wrong.

The problem is that real thinking is often not coherent at first, and it is almost often ugly. It is full of half-sentences, chicken scratches, and sometimes backtracking. Sometimes it is the uneasy feeling that you do not understand what you thought you understood. Sometimes it is the discomfort of realizing your question was badly formed. Sometimes it is staring at a problem long enough to discover that the problem is not what you thought it was. And I think that part is hard to simulate, because it is hard to tolerate.

There then comes this moment in almost any meaningful intellectual work where you cannot move forward by adding more words, but can only move forward by sitting in confusion long enough for your mind to reorganize itself. It is never a pretty process and definitely not efficient. But it is this process that changes you, because it forces your mind to build new structures instead of borrowing someone else’s.

When we surrender, we skip all these moments. We jump from prompt to output and accept a framing that feels reasonable, and then we polish it. And in doing so, we replace problem-solving with problem-defining. We become fluent at responding to the question the tool gives us, instead of wrestling with the question we actually have. Linking it to critical thinking and writing, it is not that you would stop having opinions, or that you stop writing. In fact, you might write more, or sound more articulate, or look like you gained clarity.

But underneath all that, your reasoning becomes increasingly dependent on whatever the system produces. Your “thinking” starts to be a kind of acceptance, and the work becomes one of editing or reviewing rather than creating. It is easy to tell ourselves that editing is still thinking. And it can be, because there is deep thinking in revision, there is deep thinking in critique.

But my dear, the question is: critique of what, revision of what?

If the first draft of your reasoning always comes from somewhere else, your mind begins to lose the muscle memory of starting from scratch. You may still be intelligent, but your relationship to your own mind changes. You become a curator rather than a maker, and eventually even your taste starts to adapt to what is easiest to curate. The scariest part is that you may not notice this happening because the incentives around you will reward you for it. Speed, metrics, performance, engagement, the constant pressure for output.

In many situations it is tempting to accept that the person who delivers the neatest answer fastest is treated as the best thinker, even if that answer is shallow, or even if the person does not actually understand what they are saying or doing, even if they are simply good at producing something that looks like understanding. There are very few who can accept this and make efforts to actually understand and learn. What about the rest?

That is where I think the paper I read made me notice how often modern work asks people to move forward without understanding, to nod along, to accept requirements they do not fully grasp, to execute plans that have been defined elsewhere. That being said, it is always majorly on the individual, but not completely the system. AI is outperforming the average thinker. If an organization was already built on a foundation of people who are not expected to understand deeply, a tool that generates confident answers can be slotted in seamlessly and can make it feel like an upgrade. And in truth and reality, it is.

The question, then, is not whether AI will make people less intelligent. The question is whether it will normalize a world in which “understanding” is optional because something else can produce the surface-level artifacts of understanding. Surrender is again often social, because people surrender together. A team can collectively accept a tool’s output because no one wants to be the difficult person who insists on thinking from first principles, no one wants to look slow, no one wants to be the one who cannot keep up.

This is where I think we need to be honest about what we are doing when we use these tools. Question what part of my mind am I outsourcing? Am I using the tool as a place to hold memory and speed up retrieval? Or am I asking it to show me patterns I might have missed? Or am I letting it define the pattern entirely? Or am I asking for a way out?

That is one way to tell, I think. When I am offloading, the tool’s output feels like it supports my thinking. When I am surrendering, the tool’s output feels like it replaces my thinking. It creates a feeling of completion that I did not earn. And earning is an odd word here, because it sounds like I am saying you have to suffer to deserve an idea, and I am not trying to romanticize struggle.

But there is something real about the effort of thinking, to let that brain hurt, and how that effort is part of what makes the thought yours. A mind that has taken billions of years to evolve to build a certain capacity of judgement and ability to see beyond what it is immediately given, is marvelously beautiful. If we hand that over too easily to a “tool”, to me, it is a change in what it means to be a person in the world.

The obvious counterargument is that we have always handed things over. We gave arithmetic to calculators, we gave navigation to GPS, we gave memory to the cloud. And yes, that is true. But there is a difference between outsourcing a function and outsourcing judgement. There is a difference between outsourcing a task and outsourcing the process by which you decide what the task is. Arithmetic is a tool. GPS is a tool. They do not usually pretend to be your mind, but AI does. That is part of its power and part of its danger. It can provide the next sentence before you find it yourself, and if you let it do that often enough, you start to forget how to wait for your own sentence.

I think that is why resisting surrender requires a strange kind of self-motivation. By any means, I am not saying “work harder”, but be loyal to your own interiority. Do not let speed and metrics dictate what counts as thinking. It also requires humility, because one reason surrender is tempting is that it protects you from feeling stupid. When you are thinking on your own, you have to face your own limitations, and face what you do not know, and face the possibility that your first instinct is wrong. A tool can spare you that, and it can give you a polished answer and let you pretend you were never confused.

But my dear, confusion is never a defect and often the beginning of understanding.

There is another layer here that I find hard to name without sounding dramatic, but I will try anyway. When we use AI to think for us, our reasoning becomes only as good as the AI’s reasoning. It means your judgement begins to inherit the model’s defaults, its sense of what counts as relevant, or what counts as a good argument. Even if you disagree with it, even if you push back, you are still operating within its range of possibilities and letting it set the initial space in which you move.

Perhaps that is the deepest risk. Not that we will become stupid, but that our imagination will narrow. That our mental world will be shaped by the same statistical patterns, the same consensus phrases, the same generic forms of reasoning. That we will begin to sound alike, our apps will look all the same, and then begin to think alike.

I do not want to claim that everyone who uses AI will end up like this. I do not want to universalize my fear. Some people will use these tools in ways that genuinely expand them and overcome barriers. The problem is not the existence of this assistance, but the ease with which assistance becomes abdication when the surrounding system rewards abdication.

So what does it look like to stay on the offloading side of the line?

For me, it begins with staying close to the question or problem. If I am using a tool, I want it to help me see my own question more clearly. I do not want it to replace it. I want it to help me retrieve, compare, reorganize, and I want it to act like a reflection of what I have said so I can hear it. But I do not want it to tell me what the question should be, because that is where my agency lives. Sometimes the questions it tells me are quite good too, because I have not thought about it, and that is very acceptable. But I want to be the one in the driver’s seat.

I am unsure if this feels like more than a tech debate, but more of a question about what kind of life we are building. A life where we remain participants in our own reasoning, or a life where we become managers and reviewers of borrowed outputs, or is it a life where we try to keep the muscle of thinking intact. I do not have a clean conclusion anyway, and I only know that the slip and fear is real and that it is easy, and that it happens under the most ordinary pressures. I know that we are tired, I know what the world is demanding. I know that the temptation to surrender will often feel like the sensible choice.

But my dear, I still think there is something worth resisting. Thinking is a form of aliveness, and it is one of the few ways we remain in contact with reality rather than floating through it.

If AI can help us offload the parts that weigh us down, that is a gift. If it teaches us to surrender the part that makes us human, then it is not a gift at all. It is just another way of getting through the day without ever really being there.

Yours in thought,
Yana

Whose eyes am I using when I call something beautiful?

Saiyana Ramisetty — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 12:55:58 GMT

John Berger’s Ways of Seeing brought me back to a thought that is easy to agree with in the abstract, but much harder to live inside. “Seeing is never innocent.” If I had to explain to a child what seeing means, I’d probably say, “It’s the world arriving at the eyes.” But the twist is that seeing is always already shaped, because it happens inside a particular mind, inside a particular body, inside a culture that has trained attention long before any individual begins to name what they notice.

One might call that “reality.” Reality, in that sense, arrives already filtered by language, culture, and values, and by the limits of what a nervous system can register, and by the simplest fact that the observer is always inside the observation. So how can I be sure whose eyes I am seeing through? I can’t, because there is no clean outside position from which to verify what is being seen. It is not purely somebody else’s eyes, and it is not purely mine either, because I am a culmination of life that has happened to me, and of life that happened long before I came into existence. I can list the causes, like genes, DNA, society, culture, experience, and the accumulation of what has happened.

Berger’s line, “We only see what we look at,” starts to feel more interesting to me.

When I separate the physical fact of vision from the act of “seeing,” it becomes clearer that looking is a kind of choice. And choice is narrowing. One thing is brought within reach, and a hundred other things fall back out of reach. Even that narrowing has already been shaped by what I have been taught to notice, and what my mind has learned to scan for.

Whose eyes?

That brings me back to my earlier question about “whose eyes” I am using. There is a growing consciousness of individuality here, proof that this was one person’s seeing and not another’s. At a certain point, the question of perception becomes inseparable from the question of being perceived. The moment someone notices they are being seen, they often begin to see themselves through that gaze. Even when one is convinced they are seeing clearly, they are also inside someone else’s seeing.

Also, present perception is braided with whatever has already happened: past experience, past habits of attention, what I have learned to fear, what I have learned to call beautiful, what I have learned to ignore. All of it becomes what I draw inferences from, and what I carry into the present. It is difficult to pretend this is not happening every time one looks at something.

Berger also writes, “We never look at just one thing; we are always looking at the relation between things and ourselves.”

And then I get stuck on the question. When I see something, where does seeing end and where does interpretation begin?

I think about how the eyes can hold still while the mind keeps moving, stitching pieces together. It pulls in memory, preference, fear, desire, and the whole backlog of what I have already learned to notice. In that sense, “vision” can feel continuously active, because “thought” is continuously active. The mind connects fragments and I end up calling that connecting “seeing.” What looks like a single act is a layered process: sensation, orientation, association, and then meaning.

The mighty ocean and petty buckets

When I move from “seeing” to “thought,” I realize I have spent my whole life trying to articulate what I call “thoughts.” Quite often, though, I feel convinced that language restricts thought, that thought has to be forced out into words, and that something in that forcing becomes rigid. But my mind does not feel rigid. It feels fluid, always moving, never quite settling. So how do I “show” you what my thought is?

It can feel like standing in front of an ocean and being asked to capture it, to tell the world what it is. So I reach for buckets. I fill them with whatever words I can find. In the end, the buckets can be shown to someone else, the way I am writing this to you now, so you can read it and “see” my thought. Even then, am I sure? It is easy to argue that it is not enough. The source of my thought feels like an ocean, a sense of meaning with no edges, and I keep reaching for language to give it edges. That sounds absurd.

Each of us can see and feel the ocean individually, and it makes me wonder whether the ocean is the same for everybody, a shared edgeless field of meaning, or something like it. Even if there is a sharedness, the forms shaped out of it, through the buckets, are obviously different. That is why each of us is different, and the difference comes from the “ways of seeing”, from perception, from upbringing, from what we are taught to value, from the kinds of thinking we learn to build, from what is called reality.

When you’re inside the ocean, is there an impulse to understand, and does understanding become an act of capturing it, naming it, explaining it? Because when I’m inside the ocean, meaning feels like the only way to trust the ocean. Then the search for meaning pulls me out of it, and I get further away. I start thinking about the intent behind stepping out, about finding buckets for the ocean, about carrying it forward into another person, about changing something, for example, you.

That is why the ocean, or shared meaning, feels like a kind of magic to me. We show each other our buckets, and sometimes something stable appears between them. The ocean is not possessed by any one person’s way of seeing, and yet it can be approached together. Isn’t that beautiful?

The paradox is living without explanation, or explaining oneself out of living. What would you choose?

Why make anything?

At this point, feeling, touching, or immersing inside the ocean is what I can clumsily call whatever is there before interpretation begins. The ocean is the first contact before words. But is it before thought, or after? In that sense, the ocean is not just something happening to me. It is what lets the underlying things feel real, even when they cannot be proven in language. Because without language, or any sort of expression, there would be no way to claim the ocean exists at all. That is why we make art, we write, we picture, we create.

Perhaps this is one reason art keeps returning, even when each era feels compelled to justify it. The age of AI asks again what art is for, the way earlier periods, and Walter Benjamin, asked what art is for in the age of mechanical reproduction. The recurrence of the question might come from anxiety, but the answer feels the same. When something is made, written, sung, photographed, something is placed outside the self and then met again. It is proof that something moved through a person, that existence left a mark.

Yours in thought,
Yana

Looking forward to living, but afraid of living

Saiyana Ramisetty — Sun, 08 Mar 2026 10:57:42 GMT

It feels like I carry a paradox in my chest like a stone, still looking forward, still reaching for the pulse of living, and at the same time trembling at its immediacy. I am afraid of living. There is a strange fear that keeps building up in me: want to feel, want to breathe, want to inhabit each moment fully, and yet there is something lurking in the name of “fear” as if doing “life” might unravel something I have been holding together. I do not always know what I think will unravel, but I only know that I get afraid. Sometimes I wonder what it is, exactly, that makes living feel terrifying and too much? At its worst, I am haunted by a fear that I might die without ever truly living. I do not mean that I have done nothing. I have done things. I have had days. I have survived. I have watched time pass and known I was in it. But the fear is that my life will be made of fragments, little safe fragments. Moments I allowed myself, then retreated from, a life always lived at arm’s length. If I am afraid of living, and I keep pulling back from the very experience that promises meaning, is that not also a kind of existence. A hesitant existence, if I have to be precise. A life where fear and hope keep touching each other, like two wires that should not meet, and still they do. What kind of life is that. Is that the only life there is for some of us. Or is living, in its truest sense, simply learning to hold this paradox. To let it sit heavy in the chest, and still take a step forward anyway. I once read about “self-actualization” from Abraham Maslow. From what I could recollect and understand is, living in a way that actually unfolds one’s potential. A life where authenticity, creativity, and purpose are structural. He suggested that fear often pushes us into safety and predictability, and that we become spectators of our own lives instead of participants. Is that what I am doing? Because I admire my own life from a distance, the way I can prepare for living, think about living, imaging living, plan living, and still delay the thing itself. Safety can look like so many things, sometimes it looks like waiting until I am ready, until I am healed, until I am better, until I have earned it. And i do not even know what “it” is sometimes. I only know the shape of postponement. Because vulnerability of life is, not being able to control how life lands on you, and more how you land on life. Of letting yourself be seen, and letting yourself care, and letting the world touch you. I want to live. I want laughter that wrinkles my eyes. I want the ache of love, because it proves I care. I want the kind of joy that feels slightly dangerous because it makes me feel how much I could lose. And still, I can feel the hesitation in my chest like a stone. A dark cloud walking beside me like a shadow, taking the name of fear. What if living leaves scars I cannot soothe. What if truly living demands more that I am ready to give. I think some part of me has been conditioned to equate living with risk. Risk of pain. Risk of failure. Risk of loss. Risk of humiliation. Even risk of being misunderstood. There is a part of me that treats intensity as danger as well. As though feeling something fully is the same things as stepping off a cliff. We are taught, in so many ways, that the ideal is to be without fear, as though it is a flaw. But I think fear is not something we eliminate and more of it walks with us into the act of living, and the real question is how we relate to it. I also think about the way fear is built into us. I have read little about it in cognitive neuroscience, and it is hard to escape the basic fact that fear has survival value. It arises because it improved the odds of staying alive. It is not there to make me happy or fulfilled. It is there to keep me from dying. In the modern human, I think those circuits are misfiring and becoming overactive responding to things that are not threats on the dying sense, but still feel like threats. A perceived failure. A risk to identity. A risk to belonging. A risk to being loved. It is strange to realize that my fear of living might not be a failure or risk to live. It might be my brain doing exactly what it was designed to do, only in the wrong situations, at the wrong volume, and for the wrong reasons. Kierkegaard’s “the sickness unto death” — the despair that comes from not being fully oneself. I do not always understand him, but I understand that feeling. The sense that something in me is not being allowed to come into the world. the sense that I am withholding myself from my own life, and that while holding becomes it own kind of pain. Kierkegaard’s soul living between hope and fear, that, feels like the most honest description of my inner world. I can still want it. I can still imagine a life that feels wide and alive. Fear, because to step into that life is to take on the responsibility of choices, and consequences, and the way mine intersects with other lives. Sometimes I wonder if I hold back because I do not trust myself with the weight of my own life. Or because I do not trust the world with me. Or because I am afraid that once I really begin, I will not be able to stop, and I will have to feel everything I have been keeping at a distance. We look at the horizon of living and admire it from afar. We long for richness of experience, depth, and connection. And we fear the very things that make life feel alive. So, is fear the opposite of living? Or is it simply part of it? Perhaps the work is not to become fearless, but I must try to become someone who can live while afraid, someone who can keep showing up anyway. Again and again in the full complexity of the heart. Risking being hurt because the alternative is a life closed off from sensation and dreams, that feels like a kind of dying to oneself, like a slow erosion of something that still wants to be born. I am afraid of living because it matters, and the tragedy, my darling, is to never dare to be alive in the first place.

Yours in thought, Yana.

Aphrodite, hear my prayer

Saiyana Ramisetty — Sun, 08 Feb 2026 09:41:17 GMT

Slowly reading Greek literature, tragedies, and mythology as a long, lived thing by staying inside the events until they start giving me meaning.

I am not sure where else to begin except with Aphrodite. I have been reading the Homeric Hymn to her, and something about the way desire gets talked about there has made me want to write about it.

In many cultures and myths, desire is never treated as a private affair, but was always given a name, a goddess, a history, a genealogy, a war, and a set of consequences, and more importantly, placed her among the powers that contain the order of the world.

When I can say no one can escape her, it is because the goddess moves among the gods and mortals as swiftly as entering a bedroom or a battlefield, a forest or a city, perhaps drifts in the air or washes off in the sea. Every living creature in the world answers to her, be it birds or beasts; even the gods and goddesses are wooed by her charms. Then how small are mortals, and how influenced are we by Aphrodite?

What instantly grabbed my attention was the voice of the hymn itself, how perfectly it assumes the reality of the gods and the seriousness in their powers. Aphrodite’s appearance felt as a presence that alters the shape of things, and to feel that desire itself is being described as a force that possesses, something that is irresistible.

I had a feeling that desire in the hymn is elevated because it is unavoidable. Without it, nothing would begin, no lineage would continue, no world would reproduce itself. Aphrodite is that force that compels beings out of isolation and bonds them into relation, which gives the world a movement, to move forward.

I also used to think of desire as something interior and expressive, something that belongs to me, that reveals who I am. But the hymn made me think of a different idea: desire does not originate inside us, but it comes to us, and at the end, makes use of us.

In the hymn, yet again Zeus intervenes and causes Aphrodite herself to desire a mortal man. I think this is central to the Greek moral imagination, that what you have authority over is never absolute and to rule a certain domain is to be bound by it too, and that gods themselves are not exempt from the structures they uphold or govern.

So Aphrodite’s desire takes her to Anchises; she disguises herself, appearing as a mortal woman of extraordinary beauty. This encounter unfolds slowly, and suddenly the seduction turns into fear. Anchises is not confident and I think he senses that such beauty always carries danger. In a few moments he worries that this woman might be divine, that intimacy with her might destroy him. I am going to settle for an intuition that attraction arrives alongside that something irreversible is about to occur.

After they sleep together, Aphrodite reveals herself and that is when the revelation is devastating because Anchises is expecting death. In Greek myth, mortals who cross divine boundaries rarely escape unpunished. That is when Aphrodite starts to speak and I cannot miss how she speaks of humiliation. Of the indignity of having loved a mortal, of having been drawn into the finite world that she usually only visits, of bearing a child who must grow old and die. She will bear a child. Aeneas will be strong, noble, protected, but he will age, hence he will suffer and he will die. However much she would want to intervene, delay this, or shield her child, in the end she cannot undo this basic structure of human life.

What makes me relate this feeling to desire deeply is to sense the fear of loss, becoming vulnerable and exposed. When we love someone, we start to sprout a new fear inside us, for them. Perhaps, that is the burden of love.

We often speak of following our desires (follow your heart, follow your desire…) as though they were guides to our authentic true selves. But the hymn made me question this too: once desire has entered our life, in any form, what will it demand of us and how does it change, and do we submit to this change willingly or unknowingly?

Desire once entered becomes an event that alters the conditions of a life, to feel compelled, and we mistake it for just a mood. To desire is us giving approval for inviting change and attachment, at the same time, accepting that something will be lost.

From this moment I am going to see Aphrodite among us even though we rarely name her. I will start to see her when we reach for connection and recoil from the dependence that connection has compelled us to. To live under Aphrodite’s power is to live with the knowledge that desire will change us, that it will bind us to others, that it will make us vulnerable to loss.

Oh Aphrodite, hear my prayer, when you come to me, show me what you will make of me, show me what I am willing to lose.

Next up: I’m reading the chunk of texts and references where Paris escapes with Helen and how old oaths force the Greek leaders to join the war.

I’ll share more of my thinking-on-paper thoughts as they come to me. Until then, take care.

Yours in thought,
Yana

Reading list:

The Homeric Hymns, a new translation by Micheal Crudden

Image credits:

A summer morning by Rupert Bunny

Tired of living a few steps ahead of my own life

Saiyana Ramisetty — Sat, 31 Jan 2026 18:38:43 GMT

A note before you read: This is about my relationship with anxiety and imagined catastrophe, but I am writing it for anyone who has spent their days bracing for disasters that rarely arrive. If you are like me, then first for all, I understand you.

Someone from work suggested a book that I am currently reading and only done with the first chapter, but for every five minutes I find myself pausing more than I read. Constantly I kept asking myself about the difference between real danger and imagined catastrophe. And in that chain of thought, I got stuck with an uncomfortable realization about how small my problems are. How absurdly cushioned my anxieties look when placed beside lives that have known actual risk. Bodily risk, existential risk, the kind of risk that does not live entirely in the head. By any means I am not saying mental endurance is not harmful, but imagined problems are.

For the past couple of hours, I have been asking myself this question: Why are you doing this? Spending your days bracing for disasters that almost never happen? But let me tell you, I hesitate even writing that, because I know how easily it can turn cruel. I certainly do not want to diminish my own suffering or shame myself into gratitude. I know that anxiety is not cured by being told that others have it worse. But there is something I want to write about, something I need to understand myself, and here I am.

I have lived most of my life in preparation mode, always scanning, always anticipating, always imagining what could go wrong. My mind runs simulations constantly, because I think vigilance is my most important duty to survive. This habit certainly did not appear out of nowhere, but has been with me since childhood, and it kept me safe most of my life. I understand it is an old survival strategy as well, because some people learned to prepare by storing grain and some learned to prepare by storing imagined futures. Fortunately or unfortunately, I fall into the latter.

But the difference is, back then it felt intelligent and responsible. I learned early that if you think far enough ahead, if you rehearse every possible scenario, you might be able to soften the blow when things go wrong and you might suffer less later by suffering a little in advance. Except that “little” turned into a lot as I grew older. All this preparedness became a way of living when it was supposed to be a tool or mechanism. That in turn made my nervous system stay switched on, and my inner world became crowded with futures that never arrived. 99% of what I worried about did not happen, but the cost I paid was huge. I paid in tension, in worry, in tiredness, and in a constant sense of being mentally elsewhere.

Reading about someone whose days were shaped by real danger, by existential trauma, by physical endurance, by the possibility of actual harm, made something clear that my anxiety is responding only to imagined moments, and more often I am neither responding nor reacting, but always rehearsing. Do that intensively and extensively, then you realize that the problem with living in rehearsal constantly is that you never arrive on stage. Life keeps happening while you are preparing for it with days passing and experiences blurring. Moments that could have been inhabited fully are instead filtered through a haze now. When this rehearsal is not being put into reality, the problems are largely internal, living in the head, feeding on the little attention that’s left. The “real” challenge is that they can continue to live endlessly because they mostly do not demand any immediate action from the reality.

That made me realize something about what this takes from me. It seems like it takes a toll on my mind, but what is happening in the background is that it is equally taking a toll on the body. Because our nervous system is not designed to treat hypothetical futures as not emergencies. Yet that is exactly what I have trained mine to do. Every uncertainty becomes a potential threat, and every decision branches into a dozen imagined failures. It is exhausting, seriously. It makes me tired in a way that sleep or any amount of rest does not fix. Tired of always thinking, always anticipating, always standing a few steps ahead of my own life, tired of mistaking anxiety for foresight, tired of living as though something terrible is always just around the corner, even when the present moment is perfectly fine to live.

This is where the book I am reading made me feel a bit of gratitude for my life. A sense that perhaps I owe it more presence than I have been giving it. Because this life is the only thing I know for certain that I have. I do not know if there is rebirth. I do not know if consciousness returns in another form. I do not know what happens after death. All of that belongs to belief, speculation, spirituality, and maybe philosophy. What I do know is that I am alive now. That time is passing now and experience is still available to me now. But unfortunately anxiety is stealing this time without me recognizing it because my time is filled with moments where the body is present but the mind is elsewhere, busy running scenarios that never materialize or come to reality. To put it plainly, it is a tragedy to spend a finite life preparing for disasters that mostly do not come.

I do not know how to solve this, because this is all I know since I can remember my life. I do want to find another way. But I still worry. I still overthink. I still overthink my overthinking. My mind still gravitates toward worst-case scenarios with perfect consistency, and I am a conscientious person, so that is an added extra trouble. I have always been running around the question of how do I control my anxiety, but now I am starting to ask what kind of life do I want to be present for? I find myself wanting something simpler than happiness because happiness feels too abstract and easily commodified. What I want is to experience my days without constantly bracing against them. To enjoy time not as something to be optimized or protected, but to be lived. I want to sit inside moments without immediately trying to escape them mentally. I want to trust, just a little, that not every future needs to be pre-lived in my head. I want to loosen the vigilance a little to let life surprise me. I cannot remember when I last felt something surprising.

What I have learned reading stories is that fear has many forms, and that not all of them deserve equal authority. I am beginning to suspect that my anxiety is less about danger and more about control. My way of trying to outthink uncertainty and of believing that if I imagine every possible outcome, I can somehow protect myself from pain. But is that even possible? I clearly do not know how to un-train a nervous system that has been learning this pattern for three decades. I do not know how to stop scanning for danger in a world that sometimes does contain it. I just need to acknowledge uncertainty without letting it trap every minute of my day.

Most importantly, I want to stop missing my own life while trying to protect it so ferociously. I want to learn what it feels like to live in the world instead of in my head. To be here, in this moment, in this body, in this one life that I know I have, but with a little more trust that I can meet whatever comes without having already lived it a hundred times in my mind. I am nowhere near to knowing how to get there, but my dear, do you?

Yours in thought,
Yana

January 2026, in books and thoughts

Saiyana Ramisetty — Fri, 30 Jan 2026 13:02:14 GMT

Happy 2026, wherever you’re reading this from. Andddd, thank you for making space for my words in your inbox.

Hope you had amazing moments to yourself amid all the “starting over” energy. For me, this month has been splendid: full of Greek stories and characters to talk with.

The Greek Dispatches

I’m slow reading Greek literature, tragedies, and mythology as a long, lived thing by staying inside the events until they start giving me meaning. Currently, I’m sitting and thinking with Homer, to ask why the moments and figures in The Iliad matter, and to explore how the feelings and judgments in this ancient text still resonate in our modern life and thought

Dispatches that went out this month

The Iliad poem opens in the tenth year of war, so I spent time this month to read the backstory of the Trojan war before The Iliad begins.

#3 — The war gets its first weapon, a golden apple

#4 — The war begins upstairs

Notes and a bit of side reading

Reading The Lucifer Effect, I came across this passage that stopped me mid-page. Philip Zimbardo, drawing on C. Wright Mills, writes about the “power elite” not merely as decision-makers but as those whose failure to act is itself a consequential act. Their power lies less in what they choose to do, and more in the fact that they can afford not to choose at all. It sent me straight back to my post on Zeus and the golden apple.

In the myth, Zeus’s “not my problem” is made possible by power, because he had the power. The power to step aside and refuse judgment, which inevitably lets consequences fall elsewhere, more precisely cascading downward. This kind of power belongs to those who are positioned high enough that they will not bear them. Mills puts it plainly: occupying such positions matters more than any single decision, because inaction reorganizes the world just as surely as action does.

Myth and social theory are meeting the same idea here, named differently: responsibility flowing downward but not power.

Thank you for being here and reading alongside me!

I’ll post another letter next month on what I’m reading, writing, and thinking. Until then, take care!

Yours in thought,
Yana

Aphrodite didn’t ask Paris to change

Saiyana Ramisetty — Sun, 11 Jan 2026 13:07:00 GMT

Slowly reading Greek literature, tragedies, and mythology as a long, lived thing by staying inside the events until they start giving me meaning.

Backstory: Paris must choose between three goddesses. Each offer is a promise about what Paris gets to have and who Paris gets to be. Paris chooses what he wants most, and a private desire turns into a public war. Hera and Athena offer him futures that require a new self. Aphrodite wins because her offer doesn't require Paris to become someone new. This essay is about the difference between becoming and admitting. About offers that change you versus offers that reveal you.

Desire.

That’s what comes to mind as a quick answer when I try to answer the question: Why did Paris choose Aphrodite? The most beautiful woman in the world as his wife. After reading the judgment of Paris, I slept with one question still lingering in my mind: what would I do if I were Paris and was given three bribes, one of them being “the most handsome man in the world as a husband”? Would I choose Aphrodite? Why and why not? That’s the thought that kept me up one night, and I was going round and round revolving around the three bribes/gifts the goddesses had to offer, and choosing one (for a second forgetting the whole point of this petty battle being about “who’s the fairest?”). There’s something more than just desire to drive Paris toward picking Aphrodite, and after a rabbit hole of thought, I ended up with: Hera and Athena offer him futures that require a new self. Aphrodite wins because her offer doesn’t require Paris to become someone new.

If I imagine being in Paris's shoes and try to take a look at these three goddesses and see them as women, perhaps they are not "women" so much as three forces/powers wearing faces and bodies. That is the first thing I want to hold onto and forget for a second about the goddesses, which will let me not see this as a beauty contest, because in the end it was not. So, it is power speaking in three accents, more precisely, institution (Hera), performance (Athena), want (Aphrodite), standing in front of a human being (I'm stressing it again, a human) whose hands are made for ordinary, mundane, mortal things. The story I was taught in school makes a big deal out of the apple, gold, beauty, the writing, but when I read it again after so many years, all I keep seeing is the hand. A poor mortal hand taking a problem that is too heavy for it, not in the way gold should be, but the weight of consequences, or the weight of public meaning, or the weight of being turned into a symbol (or even a fool) before you even know you are in an epic story.

Then comes Hera, whose offer is almost too large to be heard by the person she is addressing. Choose me, and I will make you king, not of a small place, but where power holds and lasts. What this one force is offering: position, or in other words institution. If I'm being this hand, and I chose this force, then it is offering me a self with a future with a throne, and a life that must stretch to contain it. But then the small mortal hand is used to tending goats and sheep, that can't even imagine where a life with a throne would go, without the inner furniture for it yet. This really seems like handing a child a crown and calling it practical. When one picks this offer, it demands you become someone else first, and then perhaps you can have it, and the becoming itself will justify the wanting: you will be king, so you may want what kings want.

Athena's offer comes with a different seduction: if you want kingship, I can give you something more reliable than a throne — a skill, victory, a mind that does not lose. This force is offering consequences, competence, strategy, excellence, admiration that is earned. Because a throne can make you admired for what you have, this will make you admired for what you can do. Now going back to the image of mortal hands of a shepherd, this offer sounds like a weapon which he does not know how to hold.

Then Aphrodite: You don't want a throne, you don't want a battlefield, you want one thing, and I can see it in your eyes. Companionship, passion, desire, and love for a lonely life is all that it wants. This force is not promising a future self, but choosing it will give you what can make your present self more beautiful and fulfilling. And that there is where the myth turns for me from a simple "bribe" story into something more psychological. Because so much of what we call "choice" is really a choice between the selves we are willing to become. It beautifully fits inside the life he already has sliding into the groove that already exists in him. He can stay him. All the goddesses offer him what a human is allowed to want and also offer him what a human is allowed to be. Hera and Athena offer futures that require a new self, where Aphrodite's offer doesn't need any transformation or ask for practice or ask him to earn; just asks to admit the want, a door that's already warm from his own hand.

There is a temptation to moralize this, to say that Paris chooses the easy path, or that Aphrodite is a trickster. But human desire alone can make kingdoms rise and fall. Put that aside for a moment. "You can stay you" — no transformation required at first, no need to imagine a new identity, no need to stretch and fail publicly, no need to tolerate the long pain of becoming eligible for what you want. Hera and Athena say, in their own ways, you can have it later, but first homework. Aphrodite says, you can have it, and you do not have to become someone else to deserve it.

The more I look at it, the more I see that the myth is not only about which bribe is stronger, but about which kind of wanting is bearable. Given that tense situation of three divine forces in front of him, it is very easy to choose satisfaction and comfort. It frames the choice as a risk calculation that happens inside a trembling body. The word "fairest" is really a trap-word, which locks a whole future into place. When Paris chooses Aphrodite, I imagine her being unceremonious, that apple was never the prize to her. She had to win the contest that claims the winner to be the most beautiful. What remains of a goddess of desire when she is publicly told she is not the most desirable?

After all the fuss is over, then the actual problem begins for the mortal hands, because Paris might think the danger is in what he chose, but the real danger is that the world now has a public record of who humiliated whom, and that is him. What Hera and Athena heard from his mouth is not "Aphrodite"; they heard, "You lose," and a story that will be retold. He becomes the mouth that spoke the humiliation, and mouths can be shut. To learn what is the cost to embarrass a queen and the goddess of war. Threats aside, I believe he chose honestly; he chose what he wants the most. Is it honest to choose the offer that asks the least of you, because it matches the self you already are? I do not know. I only know that myths care about consequences.

It makes me think of how rarely our choices remain private even when they begin in private desire. A private desire turning into a public war. Sometimes "love" is the word that makes theft sound socially acceptable. Theft. Love. The names we give to the same act depending on whose side we are on. I'm not sure what I think about Helen as a prize promised in exchange for a verdict, and a desire becoming an excuse for a war where so many bodies will be buried. Keeping aside Helen for a moment, what's interesting is Aphrodite wins because she offers something that requires no becoming, but something inside him, and she dressed it as destiny.

That night, I kept thinking about the difference between becoming and admitting. Becoming has a kind of dignity to it in modern culture and looks like effort and growth and earning. But there's its own cruelty: it demands that you inhabit a self before it is fully real, and it makes you perform eligibility. Admitting, on the other hand, can look like laziness, like indulgence, like weakness. It can also be the most honest thing you do, because it strips away the narrative of improvement and leaves you with the raw shape of want.

I'm not saying comfort zone is evil, but the offer that lets you stay you can also trap you inside the smallest version of yourself, keeping you from ever finding out what you could become. "Becoming" is the first step towards change, and also asks you to act as if you are already the person you are trying to become. And this is where the ethical question starts to wobble for me. Yes, becoming can be truthful, but it can also be a tactic, a way to manipulate yourself. A way to pretend you're somebody else and keep an identity project going even when the interior reality is different.

The opportunities that tell you you don’t have to change are more dangerous than the ones that ask you to change. And when you flip the coin to: becoming in private vs. becoming in public, then what’s your admission or accountability level?

We are living in a moment where these admissions are becoming social media content, where people confess their transformations as a form of proof. I see seductive "becoming her/him" essays, videos, everywhere. I'm becoming. This year is about becoming. The morning routine. The night routines. The glow-ups. The reset. The new era of someone who is always on top of the day. It's so exhausting because becoming feels like there is a future self already real and you are just catching up. Once you say "this is who I am becoming" in public you can't easily revise it without looking like a fool. People will read it as a failure or even lying. So the public transformation becomes its own trap. You are forced to keep being someone you may or may not "really" be, because the performance has witnesses now. This is where the apple returns to me. It forced a public verdict of what you chose to be.

I love "becoming," and I have many versions of myself whom I want to become. But my biggest problem with running after becoming is that when I keep "becoming," I keep postponing the moment of actually "being." I stay in preparation forever and can never admit what I really want without the armor of self-improvement. As if sometimes I forget what I am if I am not becoming her.

Alright, let's go back to our myth. I'm not saying Aphrodite is "evil" and Athena or Hera are "good." The three goddesses are three different ways of laundering desire and greatness into a life.

My Paris answer: If I were Paris, I'd choose Athena. A competent mind, where the wanting is justified by ability. Not "I should have it because I'm queen" but "I should have it because I can win." I admit that sounds brave in theory, but in practice it is terrifying. I can clearly see a downfall to this offer because a mind that doesn't lose implies a life where losing is intolerable. That sucks! Because life will make you lose sometimes.

What’s yours?

Next up: I'm reading the chunk of texts and references where Paris escapes with Helen and how old oaths force the Greek leaders to join the war.

I'll share more of my thinking-on-paper thoughts as they come to me. Until then, take care.

Yours in thought,
Yana

Reading list:

Apollodorus, Library
Hyginus, Fabulae
Judgement of Paris
The Judgement of Paris in Greek Mythology

Image credits:

Source unknown, copy from Panegyria
Judgement of Paris by Peter Paul Rubens
Paris in the Phrygian cap by Antoni Brodowski
Judgement of Paris, fresco from Pompeii

Zeus really said “not my problem”

Saiyana Ramisetty — Thu, 01 Jan 2026 17:19:53 GMT

Slowly reading Greek literature, tragedies, and mythology as a long, lived thing by staying inside the events until they start giving me meaning.

Backstory: At the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, parents of Achilles, Eris, goddess of discord, throws a golden apple into the room. It poses a simple, public question: who is the most beautiful? Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite cannot ignore it. A wedding party becomes a contest. Zeus opts out, pushing the responsibility of judgment into a mouth that isn’t his. The apple becomes the war’s first weapon.

Somehow, trouble and calm, both know the way to the human heart like veins and arteries.

I’ve just finished reading the backstory of the Trojan War, before I begin my slow reading of the Iliad’s main narrative. And I wonder, the first weapon in this huge war was a question that was carved into gold and left where everyone could see it: to the fairest. That seems like such a small thing to ignite a world, and yet it’s all it takes to change the temperature of a room. If the same question was asked in private, it would seem like flattery to make somebody smile. But the whole mess started when the question was posed and demanded as a public ranking. To give the title of the most beautiful will rearrange the whole dynamics of who is above and who is below. I think wars begin there, long before any ships have sailed and long before anybody bleeds: who’s above and who’s below. It’s the moment the war learns it can hurt someone without drawing blood.

Once the question barges into the wedding party, someone has to answer it or refuse it or even pretend it does not need answering. But none of these are neutral choices because if no one picks the apple, who is refusing it? The whole point of the apple is not about “the fairest,” but it was designed as a means to humiliation. The cleaner way to design it is to use beauty, because unfortunately beauty is a socially permitted reason to rank women without admitting you are ranking status.

When the public humiliation is between the goddesses, then it becomes a melodrama of its own kind. Myth survives with stories, and people telling those stories. And one such humiliation story is the story of the golden apple of discord. Being hurt in public with witnesses who will remember and retell what they saw. We pretend we live in a world of private feelings and personal choice, but so much of what we do is shaped by the fear of what will be said later or the story that will be told about us.

A humiliation that happens in private is still devastating, and it belongs to the two people (mostly) inside it. But public humiliation on the other hand, grows its own body to live, legs to spread, and a mouth to twist the facts. Someone humiliated is seen being hurt by witnesses who might not even mean harm. But it still travels and spreads because that grown mouth will retell this memory to others. I came across a talk by Ute Frevert (video below), and in her book she argues that shaming works as an instrument of power, not only when a state punishes, but also when institutions do, when ordinary groups do, and when the media does. It doesn’t mean people are bad, but that shame can be passed around. Even when formal punishment changes its shape, the social appetite for shaming can simply migrate into new places: schools, workplaces, newspapers, and the internet. It made me think of the apple again. You don’t need to hit someone to control them. Just place them under a light with other people watching.

I understand why it’s important for the three goddesses, Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite, to win the contest. For Hera, queen of Olympus, to be ranked second in a public forum would be to undermine her authority. Queens don’t lose contests in public and remain queens. Athena here is facing a different calculus altogether. She is the goddess of war and strategy; somebody who doesn’t/cannot lose. It’s no longer about being told you are not the fairest in public for her but about the challenge to status. As for Aphrodite, her reason is the most existential. As the goddess of desire and love, she exists in the realm of attraction and longing. One can imagine all the bodies and faces turning towards her in the hall when the apple’s inscription was revealed. If she loses a beauty contest, the very category that defines her essence, what is she then? What remains of her divine identity?

When the three goddesses go to Mount Ida with Hermes to visit Paris, that moment, the problem leaves the room and begins looking for somewhere else, more precisely, somebody else’s (not Zeus) throat to live in. When the goddesses meet Paris (Alexander), that’s when the apple finds a carrier. The problem has found a carrier. I reckon his first instinct should be to run. His second, to freeze. Or ironically, the third, to pray. Then the mind catches up and asks the most useless question in the world. Who do you pray to when gods are already standing in front of you? The moment the apple changes its owners, that’s when Strife succeeded in her plan. The golden apple made gods into a conflict, and now it needs to become a conflict that can spread.

The story becomes more interesting when the most powerful figure in the room refuses to touch the problem at all. Zeus says no. The moment he says “not my problem,” I feel two things at once. One is disgust. The other is fascination. I can’t tell whether he’s dodging responsibility or designing a trap. He simply passed down the problem, which in this case is a verdict, into a “mouth that isn't his.” How clever of Zeus. He doesn’t actually remove himself from the equation. He merely creates enough distance between his actions and their consequences so that he can maintain plausible deniability. Not my problem. And yet the problem still moves forward, routed through other hands, but his remain clean while the story continues. Later, when suffering arrives, the story will have a culprit with a face, which is not his.

I tend to think being in a position of leadership demands a lot of decision-making and actions. But this one move from him is so very different from how the war had become a mortal burden because of old oaths. So ironic that gods wash their hands, but mortals took up the inevitable burden and carried it. Perhaps that’s the second weapon in this war, after the golden apple. War looks like blood, swords, and spears; that’s what is easy to see. What’s harder to see are these tiny courses of action that prepare violence long before anyone lifts a blade. In the Trojan War, this casual escape of responsibility created perfect conditions where violence became inevitable.

I remember how I first met the Trojan War in school. I memorized names, events, the story itself, to pass the exams. I never truly understood why the war starts, what makes conflict feel necessary to the people inside it, why a small insult or a public ranking has the power to spread and remain. Even now, when people fight, when the news carries wars into the room, the same question returns in a plain and helpless form. Why? Why should a conflict start at all? Why can’t people live and let live?

Perhaps the people who can say “not my problem” are often the ones with the power to actually solve the problem.

Refusal which leads to some other’s action is still an action. Refusal can keep hands clean while still making the thing happen. Sometimes it looks like avoidance, but the more I look at it, the more it feels like strategy. I can’t always tell whether it is refusal by avoidance or by design. The difference matters because those two don’t mean the same thing when someone is not strong enough and deflects out of fear, versus when someone is strong enough and deflects out of control. The story keeps asking a question:

How does one tell honest refusal from power hiding, when avoidance and strategy can have the same shape, separated only by who has strength and who does not?

Zeus outsourcing the mess into “a mouth that isn't his” pushes the responsibility into Paris’s mouth, into a small mortal life. The pattern repeats throughout our human history. Leaders speak through advisors, counselors, corporations, representatives. With each layer or step of separation, distance is added between the decision maker and the consequence bearer. The decision maker stays protected while the consequence bearer becomes identifiable, punishable, and blame-able. And it becomes clearer why fear gathers around decisions. In this case, not only the decision itself, but also the story people will tell about it later. The ruckus it would create if things go wrong. So hey, not me, it’s them. How easy it is to have a person-shaped explanation when we say we want justice. We want a name we can repeat and a face that can be made to stand in for the whole mess, because it’s too hard to stay angry at a system. To say “this person hurt me” is easier than to say “this thing hurt me.”

I wonder if Homer understood how god’s politics feel eerily familiar for human institutions thousands of years later. A perfect template for how power preserved itself by creating these layers of deniability or silence. Somebody else will bleed for it. Not always literal blood, at least not at first. Sometimes reputational blood comes first; the blood of who started it, who made the decision that triggered the chain of events. I don’t fully trust this move of Zeus, but I can see why stories do this. A human choice or mistake is easier to hate or punish than a god’s shrug.

Then another question opens: what does it mean to have the convenient option to opt out of consequences? Zeus can surely step back because, ultimately, he won’t be the one bleeding on the battlefield. The gods watch human suffering with the detached interest of spectators at some sporting event. We have not yet started the main narrative of the Iliad, but the gods have favorites, they place bets on their favorites, they occasionally interfere, but who’s the one bleeding? Actually bleeding? Gods are surely not invested in the way the mortals are.

I’d call this “watching distant suffering” today. It’s easy to watch wars, disasters, suffering one doesn’t experience directly but through screens. However, everybody has opinions, preferences; some might even donate or advocate, but there is still the ability to turn away when it becomes too much. “Not my problem” — that’s our privilege. Because one can close the app or change the channel, simply divert the attention elsewhere.

The relationship between power and responsibility in the Iliad feels deliberately imbalanced (at least presently). Influencing the events while not claiming ownership of outcomes. But the king of gods acting this way is dangerous. Because he is unbound by the consequences, with so much power to create potential harm. Why? When the greatest god steps back, the problem goes to smaller gods and mortals to fill the vacuum. The smaller ones don’t get to opt out or change the channel. That there is a trap, which is hard to escape once it has happened.

How neat Zeus’s move is! He was asked to pick a side in what could be called a child’s game. I can’t call him innocent, but I also can’t call him simply guilty. If there is one thing I’m taking back from this chunk of reading: Zeus has shown me a kind of power that doesn’t need to touch the knife. It only needs to decide whose hand will hold it, not the one who routed the problem. And then, later, when blood comes, everyone points to the hand holding the knife. Not the one who designed the situation or routed the problem.

If refusal can be an action, then how do we differentiate between honest refusal and power hiding?

The apple leaves the wedding hall, but it does not leave the story. It travels to a place where a verdict can be spoken without the speaker having the power to survive it. Soon the contest will stop being about being seen and become about what desire can buy when it is offered the wrong kind of authority.

Next up: I’ll be reading the Judgment of Paris. I’m curious to see what drew him to Aphrodite, and why he chose her over the other goddesses. I’ll share more of my thinking-on-paper thoughts as they come to me. Until then, take care.

Yours in thought,
Yana

Reading list:

Apollodorus, Library
Hyginus, Fabulae

Image credits:

@memorias_delpasado
Eris Greek Goddess by YeCuriosityShoppe
The Wedding of Peleus and Thetis by Peter Paul Rubens
The Judgement of Paris by Gustav Pope

December 2025, in books and thoughts

Saiyana Ramisetty — Sat, 27 Dec 2025 21:00:47 GMT

Psst, quietly sliding this across the table: I've been brewing a new project, and I think you're going to love it. More details at the end of this letter.

Wherever you are, I wish you Merry Christmas and Happy 2026!

This month, I started reading ancient Greek literature, especially the tragedies about fate and free will. In Sophocles’s works, characters face moments where they must choose between accepting their destiny or following their own moral values. And their choices leads to their own destruction.

What seems predetermined vs. what we choose for ourselves — that’s this month’s theme!

What I read, wrote, and thought

1. Oedipus Rex by Sophocles

Essay exploring fate, free will, certainty, and prophecies. I was fascinated by how knowledge (certainty about the future) itself becomes a kind of fate. Prophecies aren’t just predictions, but they’re images of our fears and desires. When we try hard to understand what’s coming, that search itself can lead us straight to the thing we were trying to avoid.

2. Antigone by Sophocles

Essay about moral courage. At the heart of Antigone, the tragedy is about divine vs. human law. Sticking to what you believe is right, even when it costs you everything, shows the best of human character. But do we? Strong beliefs can feel pure and right when they’re your own, but can look stubborn and inflexible to others.

3. Musings: On consciousness

I try to understand consciousness the way I understand engineering problems. But in engineering, you must clearly define the problem before you can solve it. Consciousness doesn’t stay still long enough for that. The mind is both the tool we use to study consciousness and the thing we’re studying. Unfortunately we can’t step outside it to look at it objectively.

4. Musings: On atomic priesthood

I start with the “Golem of Prague,” an old Jewish myth. But I’m really thinking about what happens when we create something we can’t control anymore. Nuclear waste is like a modern golem and will be dangerous for thousands of years, long after we are gone. The idea of “atomic priesthood”: one day, we stop relying on instructions and start relying on myth and fear to keep danger sealed and hidden.

What’s coming next!

The Iliad by Homer

The Greek Dispatches is me slowly reading Greek literature, tragedies, and mythology as a long, lived thing by staying inside the events until they start giving me meaning. I read a chunk of the poem, stop where I feel pulled, and write essays from there.

Currently, I’m sitting and thinking with Homer, to ask why the moments and figures in The Iliad matter, and to explore how the feelings and judgments in this ancient text still resonate in our modern life and thought.

Thank you for being here and reading alongside me!

Yours in thought,
Yana

They told her no, she said watch me

Saiyana Ramisetty — Fri, 26 Dec 2025 08:07:26 GMT

Slowly reading Greek literature, tragedies, and mythology as a long, lived thing by staying inside the events until they start giving me meaning.

An essay about moral courage in Antigone, a Greek tragedy by Sophocles.

Sometimes we don’t follow the order of events; we follow the order of grief.

Oedipus Rex was my first encounter with Greek tragedy, which kept me drawing back to the Theban plays, leading me to Antigone. Though Oedipus at Colonus comes next chronologically in the story, I chose Antigone partly to understand Sophocles’s writing process. He actually wrote Antigone first, followed by Oedipus the King, and then Oedipus at Colonus.

Written in or before 441 BCE, Antigone is a page in the book of all we’ve lost, and all we’re still fighting for. The play explores divine vs. human law, the weight women carried in that distant age, and what the limitations of authority can mean — then and today!

My essay on Oedipus Rex, a Greek tragedy by Sophocles about fate, free will, certainty, and prophecies.

For Those Who Haven’t Read It

Note: If you’ve already read the play or know the story, feel free to skip this section. For context on events before Antigone, read my Oedipus Rex essay.

The two brothers (Oedipus’s sons Eteocles and Polyneices), fight because they had agreed to take turns ruling Thebes, but Eteocles refused to give up the throne when it was Polyneices’s turn. Polyneices then gathered an army from Argos to claim his rightful place, leading to a battle at the seven gates of Thebes where both brothers killed each other and their uncle Creon becomes king. He orders that Eteocles be buried with honor as a defender of the city, but Polyneices must be left unburied as a traitor. Their sister Antigone defies this order to honor divine law by burying Polyneices. When caught, she accepts her death sentence rather than back down. Her defiance triggers a tragic chain of events → Antigone’s death leads to the suicide of Haemon (Creon’s son and her fiance), which causes Eurydice (Creon’s wife) to take her own life. By the end, Creon understands his terrible mistake, but only after losing his entire family.

Theban Royal Family Free

Female confrontation in a patriarchal world

In ancient Athens, women were considered legal minors throughout their lives, always under the guardianship of a male relative. They couldn’t own property independently, participate in politics, or even move freely in public spaces. Their primary value was in producing legitimate male heirs and maintaining the household.

Now imagine Antigone confronting THE KING! How bold! This becomes clearer when Creon, enraged at being challenged, says, “If she’s not punished for taking the upper hand, then I am not a man. She would be a man!” and later, “As long as I live, I will not be ruled by a woman.” What Antigone was unknowingly doing here was threatening Creon’s identity as a man in power.

I absolutely loved and admired the power of Antigone’s unflinching moral certainty. When Antigone was questioned if she’s not ashamed to have a mind apart from others, she does not back down. She believes divine law is higher than human law.

“I cannot side with hatred. My nature sides with love.”
“He has no right to keep me from my own.”
— Antigone, speaking of Creon’s order against burying her brother.

Compared to Ismene’s (her sister) submissive nature, Antigone has a clear sense of where she stands. Having such a strong will, especially in those times when men ruled, was astonishing!

“We are women and we do not fight with men. We’re subject to them because they’re stronger, and we must obey this order, even if it hurts us more.”
— Ismene

Reading these lines, I was slightly frustrated. Stronger in what way? I agree, physically stronger, by default. Setting aside gender, what makes someone right or just? What about mental strength? What about wisdom, values, nobility, and virtue?

Haemon: Younger but wiser than the older

I loved Haemon’s role in this tragedy. He stood right in the middle, caught between competing loyalties as Creon’s son and Antigone’s fiancé. And confronted his father’s rigidity with absolute wisdom!

Throughout the play, he makes powerful arguments about the nature of good leadership. He points out that the city actually supports Antigone, which reveals that Creon’s stance doesn’t represent the will of the people he claims to protect. Haemon tells his father that a good ruler should be willing to listen and adapt, and that wisdom comes not from rigidly holding one’s position, but from being open to other perspectives.

What I found interesting about Haemon’s argument compared to Antigone’s was that his came from a position of civic responsibility while hers appealed to divine law. His argument fell right between Antigone’s approach and Creon’s human tyranny.

Haemon showed that wisdom isn’t about age or power, but it’s about being willing to listen and change if proven wrong.

Divine vs. human law

At the heart of Antigone, the tragedy is about divine law vs. human law. Antigone stands very firmly on the side of divine law, insisting that the burial of the dead is a sacred duty that comes before any human order.

“No man could frighten me into taking on the god’s penalty for breaking such a law”
— Antigone

In all of the Theban tragedies, Tiresias (the priest) played such an important role. The blind prophet who serves as a bridge between the human and divine realms, eventually confirms Antigone’s position when he tells Creon: “The dead are no business of yours; not even the gods above own any part of them. You’ve committed violence against them.”

If Tiresias hadn’t appeared in the play, I wonder if Creon would have ever recognized his error. His stubbornness could have continued unchallenged, at least in his own mind.

“It is common knowledge, any human being can go wrong. But even when he does, a man may still succeed. He may have his share of luck and good advice but only if he’s willing to bend and find a cure for the trouble he’s caused. It’s only being stubborn proves you’re a fool.”
— Tiresias

The strength that we discussed earlier: I think true strength lies in being flexible enough to recognize and correct our errors.

Loyalty, authority, and Antigone’s relevance in current times

I was recently asked: is absolute loyalty to authority morally right?

Coincidentally, Antigone’s clear answer: NO. Sophocles shows us that moral authority doesn’t come from power or position, but from following principles, whether divine, as Antigone would have it, or the common good, as Haemon argues.

This tragedy feels so eerily modern because it’s screaming civil disobedience to state power. When laws violate our ethical principles or moral conscience, what should we do? Antigone’s tragedy is similar to → from civil rights protesters to whistleblowers who risk everything to expose wrongdoing. Like standing up for what we believe is right, even when it costs us everything, is what gives our lives meaning.

Moreover, Creon’s flaw is also very human: he can’t separate criticism from personal attack. When we hear something we don’t want to hear, we blame the messenger and take out our emotions on whoever delivered the news. How many of us respond to criticism by attacking the critic instead of considering whether the critique has merit?

Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant, Antigone au chevet de Polynice, 1868

Afterthoughts

I’m still thinking about moral certainty. I admire how brave and clear Antigone is, but I’m also worried about how absolute both she and Creon are in their beliefs. Being so certain about what’s right can be both heroic and destructive at the same time. It’s made me rethink what moral courage really means. Sometimes, sticking to what you believe is right, even when it costs you everything, shows the best of human character. But when you’re so certain that you won’t consider other options or change your mind, that certainty can make you blind to other truths. That’s why I appreciate Haemon and Tiresias → they’re willing to reconsider and adapt when needed, to bend and find a cure for the trouble one has caused. But I know the real world doesn’t always work that way.

I’m left wondering:

What if we all had the courage, like Antigone, to stand up against unfair authority?
Would that make our world better?
Or would things stay the same, and we’d be helpless, as we are now?
Does speaking up actually change anything?

What I’m Reading Next

The Iliad by Homer
The Odyssey by Homer

Yours in thought,
Yana

References for facts mentioned in this essay:

Running towards what we flee

Saiyana Ramisetty — Mon, 22 Dec 2025 20:26:41 GMT

Slowly reading Greek literature, tragedies, and mythology as a long, lived thing by staying inside the events until they start giving me meaning.

An essay about fate, free will, certainty, and prophecies in Oedipus Rex, a Greek tragedy by Sophocles.

Bénigne Gagneraux, The Blind Oedipus Commending his Children to the Gods

I haven’t explored Greek literature much, and this tragedy play seemed like a good place to start. Written between 430 and 426 BCE, it offers a window into the morals, principles, and values of that time; essential for understanding how humanity thought and lived, which is what my Reading Project is all about.

Of Sophocles’s 120 plays, only 7 have survived. Oedipus Rex is regarded not only as his finest work but also as the purest and most powerful expression of Greek tragic drama. Now that I’ve read it, I can see why!

The tale runs on the theme of tragedy of fate. But I see it as a tragedy of certainty and the dangers that come with being too sure. Our need to know or anticipate the future (which, by the way, is the primary cause of anxiety), I think, stems from a fear of life’s unpredictability.

For Those Who Haven’t Read It

Note: If you’ve already read the play or know the story, feel free to skip this section and continue to the essay.

Oedipus Rex tells the story of Oedipus, the king of Thebes, who tries to flee from his fate but inevitably meets it in the end. The city of Thebes suffers a plague, and Oedipus seeks to stop it. The Oracle at Delphi reveals that the plague will end when the murderer of the previous king, Laius, is found and punished. Oedipus vows to find this killer, unaware that he himself is that very man.

Years earlier, a prophecy foretold that Oedipus would kill his father and marry his mother. Believing his parents to be the king and queen of Corinth, Oedipus had fled their kingdom to avoid this fate. However, in a tragic twist, he had already unknowingly killed Laius (his true father) at a crossroads and married Jocasta (his true mother), the widowed queen of Thebes. Oedipus and Jocasta have two sons and two daughters from their marriage.

As the truth emerges through interrogation and various witnesses, Jocasta hangs herself, and Oedipus blinds himself with her gold brooches. The play ends with Oedipus, now broken and blind, accepting his terrible fate. That, is the tragedy.

Fate vs. Free Will

Who is responsible for the fall of Oedipus? Fate or himself? This question has haunted me since finishing the play. On one hand, the prophecy seems inescapable, as if divine powers predetermined Oedipus’s tragic end. On the other hand, his own actions, his temperament, and choices drove the story forward.

Greek literature is deeply rooted in the belief of fate and the power of gods. I sometimes think such deeply held beliefs resist rational explanation. Time and again throughout the play, we see that humans cannot overcome their destiny. If we believe in fate, then we are fated to a life beyond our control. Yet I’m awed by how the characters’ attempts to escape their fate are precisely what fulfill the prophecy.

Laius and Jocasta tried to change their destiny because they knew of it. They thought they had cheated Apollo of his will by attempting to kill their infant son. Similarly, Oedipus knew the prophecy but believed his adoptive kingdom of Corinth and its rulers to be his parents. He fled, thinking he would escape the prophecy.

But the actions in the story are purely Oedipus’s own — his uncontrollable temper, his arrogance, especially his rage. If he had kept a cool head, he wouldn’t have killed Laius at all.

As I read, I kept thinking: what is meant to find you, will always find its way to you, no matter how hard you try to alter the course.

When emotions rule us, that is when the doom of morality begins. I read about the American theologian Tryon Edwards’s words on human destiny:

“What could contribute to the making of one’s destiny? Thoughts often lead to purposes; purposes go forth in actions; actions form habits; habits decide character, and character fixes our destiny.”

Tragedy of certainty

Apart from the certainty in prophecies, there’s another certainty that’s clearly evident in the tale: Oedipus’s certainty about himself. He was so sure, so convinced he had done everything to avoid the prophecy. There’s an egoistic arrogance in his belief: “I, Oedipus, can do no wrong.” Yet he is also a man of honor. He calls himself the man “abhorred of gods, accursed of men.” At the end of the play, he even blinds himself as punishment for sins he committed, though unintentionally.

This certainty, this belief in one’s understanding, is what I think truly led to his downfall. Creon (the king’s brother-in-law and uncle) says it as well:

“the man who thinks that bitter pride alone can guide him, without thought — his mind is sick”

Before Tiresias (a priest in Thebes) accused him of being the murderer, Oedipus was respectful and believed in the priest. But as soon as the tides turned, he started protecting himself and blaming others. Where was his respect for morals then? He even mocked Tiresias as “this magic-man and schemer, this false beggar-priest, whose eye is bright for gold and blind for prophecy.”

These are the words of wrath.

When emotion takes over, it blinds us to our own deeds. The ability to feel and experience is the very essence of life, and also the cause of our doom.

Prophecy

There was so much prominence given to oracles at that time. I wonder what the equivalent is in our current era. Perhaps it’s our reliance on data, algorithms, expert predictions, or fake social media? Prophecies are often cryptic and lead us down a different path than we expect. Is this intentional? Or are we limited by our own understanding and judgment, biased toward outcomes we favor?

What I understood from the play is this: prophecies aren’t just predictions, but they’re images of our fears and desires. Oedipus didn’t run away from his fate, but towards it. In doing so, he embraced it. The same is true for Laius and Jocasta. Their attempt to kill their child was born of fear of what might come. Yet this very act set everything in motion.

I was particularly captivated by Tiresias’s words: “A fearful thing is knowledge.” Indeed, it’s not just that knowledge can be dangerous. It’s that incomplete knowledge, or knowledge without wisdom, can be catastrophic. Oedipus knew the prophecy but lacked the wisdom to understand that running from it was pointless.

Afterthoughts

I’ve always been drawn to the idea that we create our own fate through our choices. Yet Oedipus Rex complicates this. Even as Oedipus made his choices, to leave Corinth, to kill a stranger at a crossroads, to marry a widowed queen — fate was working through him. I’d like to think his choices were free, but they were also predetermined to end at a single point.

“Mann Tracht, Un Gott Lacht“ is an old Yiddish adage meaning “Man Plans, and God Laughs.“

If I had to summarize this read, it’s the play’s exploration of how small we are as humans when confronted with mysterious higher powers we can neither see nor understand. Should we accept our fate passively, making no attempt to resist? Or should we struggle against it, knowing we cannot win — fighting not for victory, but for dignity in inevitable defeat?

I’m left wondering:

If Oedipus had accepted the prophecy rather than running from it, could he have transformed his fate into something less tragic?

What I’m Reading Next

Antigone by Sophocles
The Iliad by Homer

Yours in thought,
Yana

Consciousness is a bad engineering problem

Saiyana Ramisetty — Thu, 18 Dec 2025 02:28:38 GMT

By day, I build systems. By night, I explore the soul.
That means I’m an engineer by profession, and a reader and writer by passion.

It is 5:17 AM as I write this. I have been staring at my LinkedIn bio for the past half hour, thinking about its first two lines and why I wrote them two years ago. More precisely, I have been wondering why I instinctively separated systems and soul as though they belonged to different worlds.

To me, “soul” is just another word for consciousness.

I have been working in engineering for eight years now, and one thought has been looping in my mind this morning since I started staring at my screen: engineering begins with a luxury consciousness does not offer: a stable problem definition.

Before anything can be solved, built, or optimized, the thing in question must hold still long enough to be specified. Inputs, outputs, constraints, and success are defined and named. Though success may change based on outcomes. But before we walk the path, we know imperfectly what this could potentially become.

Engineering, to me, is this: the problem may be difficult, so we break it down to simplify understanding. But in the end, it remains recognizable as a problem.

The moment we try to treat consciousness as an engineering task, that is when it begins to feel foggy.

What exactly are we trying to build, explain, optimize, or reproduce? A system that behaves intelligently? (But what is intelligence in the first place?) A system that reports internal states? A system that has experience?

If we are trying to reproduce consciousness, where do we even begin?

This question brings to mind Thomas Nagel’s famous essay, “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?” His point was not really about bats. It was about the limitations of objective description. No amount of third-person data, no matter how detailed, can tell us what it is like to be the bat itself.

In engineering, if two systems produce the same outputs under the same conditions, they are functionally equivalent. But here, two systems can behave identically and still differ in the only way that matters: one might have experience, and the other might not.

Think of two people going through the same life event; outwardly it might look the same, yet inwardly, they might perceive it completely differently.

Yesterday, while browsing a course which I am interested to take next year, I have been reading about David Chalmers’ distinction between the “easy problems” of consciousness and the “hard problem.”

The easy problems: discrimination, integration, reportability, and the control of behavior.
The hard problem: why is any of this functional activity accompanied by experience at all?

I am increasingly convinced that engineering is structurally suited to the easy problems, but not to the hard one. To engineer consciousness, we must define it in ways that make it measurable. And each attempt risks mistaking a correlate of consciousness for consciousness itself.

For centuries, our ancestors, the great thinkers, philosophers and scientists have tried to explain consciousness. But why have we not found an answer? I suspect it is because they disagree about what counts as an explanation in the first place. When one person defines consciousness, it changes our understanding of it, which is precisely what the other person is trying to understand.

As Kant says, the mind is both the instrument that makes knowledge possible and the object we are trying to understand. Every explanation of consciousness comes from within consciousness itself. There is no view from nowhere.

And that, makes consciousness a recursive problem.

Sean Mundy: Circles

Suppose we build a system that perfectly mirrors human behavior; where do we stop? When it expresses doubts about its own consciousness? Can we consider the problem solved at that point? From an engineering standpoint, I would say yes.

But we are left with the same question we started with: is there anything it is like to be that system? Mirroring behavior alone cannot answer this, because behavior was never the target.

Perhaps consciousness is not just a hard engineering problem. It is a bad one. Not because it is unsolvable, but because the criteria for a solution cannot be defined without first taking a stand on fundamental questions.

Over the past few months, I have been reading articles on AI that make this especially visible. Some predict that consciousness will “emerge” given sufficient complexity. We humans are so fond of domestication that we are now trying to domesticate ourselves. Treating consciousness as an engineering problem is an attempt to domesticate something that resists domestication.

I will close with this: understanding the mind does not solve consciousness. It clarifies why consciousness will not stay solved.

I certainly do not mean to dismiss technical work and research as misguided. On the contrary, it makes the limits more legible. As always, explaining mechanism is not the same as explaining meaning. With AI, modeling cognition is not the same as accounting for experience.

In the end, maybe we can explain consciousness and mind in parts without explaining them as a whole and improve our systems around them.

Yours in thought,
Yana

Can the shem be removed from the mouth of the golem?

Saiyana Ramisetty — Sat, 13 Dec 2025 18:42:19 GMT

Golem depicted at Madame Tussauds in Prague

Dear Reader,

Since I started reading Frankenstein, I have been obsessed with stories about humans creating life in unnatural ways. That is when I stumbled upon The Golem of Prague. If you are unfamiliar with the myth, I have included a short summary below.

The Golem of Prague comes from Jewish folklore, most often tied to Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel in the late 16th century. To protect the Jewish community of Prague, the rabbi creates a humanoid figure from clay and brings it to life using sacred language. In some versionss, a word is inscribed on the Golem’s forehead; in others, a shem, a “sacred name” is placed inside its mouth. The Golem is obedient and literal-minded. But over time, it grows violent or continues working when it should rest. To deactivate it, the rabbi must remove the shem from its mouth or alter the sacred word. Once this is done, the Golem collapses back into clay. In many stories, its remains are stored in the attic of the Old New Synagogue.

The Shem, Life-Giving Word

When I learned about this folklore, it instantly reminded me of the laws of nature. Once creation is unleashed, there is a possibility that it could exceed its creator’s intentions. The correlation between the rabbi and nature that we can observe is this: creation is not a failure, but the important realization is when it must be unmade. Look at the systems around us, some of them execute commands so perfectly without understanding why. When we take shem as the meaning of creation itself, that is when it all makes sense.

What caught my attention is not the legend or the story, because the same concept has been existing in many cultures. But the removal of shem! That is interesting. It is as close to soul or meaning as I can define it. In the story, the name of God, when inserted, brings the golem into being, and when removed, returns it back to matter. Of all the cultures, history, fiction, and science, I do not think creation is rarely our problem. Where we have to pay more attention is in realizing and deciding when we must pull the plug. And especially when doing it, those involved must still know what the act means.

Our Modern Golem

A friend of mine has recently shared this amazing course → Mimbres: Ghost in the machine, which is about our obsession with godlike power, from medieval warfare to the atomic bomb, which examines how technological progress is repeatedly outrunning ethical control. Following that thread, I fell into the rabbit hole and stumbled on this research article by Sebastian Musch → Hans Jonas, Günther Anders, and the Atomic Priesthood: An Exploration into Ethics, Religion and Technology in the Nuclear Age. The article was very interesting and it did trigger a few thoughts which I would like to talk about. I have treated Musch’s paper as intellectual framework in writing this essay, and not summarizing it. For the full account, the original article is well worth reading.

Now think about nuclear technology as our golem and nuclear waste as its afterlife. If considering a golem that big of a nature, for argument’s sake, let’s take an example of the powerful technology which is harmful for our race. And how I understood Atomic Priesthood → Long-term nuclear waste warning messages, is our desperate attempt to make sure that the shem is never touched by the wrong hands or never touched at all. I would like to believe (though I cannot fully), that the creation of this golem and its animation is to protect the community, not to destroy its own. But over time like always, the golem grows strong and becomes autonomous. Most of the creation begins with a purpose of protection, or progress, or even efficiency sometimes, but again we see it taking sideways and ending in excess or unintended consequence.

Ati sarvatra varjayeth, (अति सर्वत्र वर्जयेत्) is a Sanskrit phrase meaning “excess of anything is bad” or “excess should be avoided in all things”

Immortal Consequences

When we go back in time and look at our history, the action and consequence of many disastrous events had a visible arc. We could see what our tools did, and we outlived those mistakes. But we humans are creatures of habit. The coming generations make the same mistake in a different form, and the cycle continues. But with nuclear technology, this cycle is broken. A decision made in one generation radiates its harms across thousands of years. The problem is not stopping this golem, because it does not stop walking even when its creator has died.

We hear a lot about ethics, morals, and why they are so important in the current age. But do we truly understand what these words demand of us? I don’t think we ever will, until we stop gambling with the futures we cannot imagine. We treat the bad consequences (long-term harm) and uncertainty as some problems that needs to be solved later, leaving it to future generations (who by the way did not choose them), because it is not our current problem. All we do is cash in our current profitable consequences. When our unsolved problems come back to bite us, then we start initiatives and programs to fix them, but most often it is too late.

One simple example is global warming and climate change. Most of us (including myself) make decisions which are easy for our current way of living, that might have terrible effects for future generations, but we still do it. Because we like the immediate comfort and profit it offers presently. And we believe that whatever progress humanity is making, the progress will clean up after itself in and for the future.

The Atomic Priesthood

Chicago’s nuclear waste, Plot M

The atomic priesthood that is discussed in the article comes to life precisely at this point where all these prohibitions become unbearable. When technology exceeds our ethical vocabulary, we begin to borrow from religion. This essay that I am writing now is an example of it. I cannot put to words the damage all the powerful and advanced technology is causing our habitat, resources, and future generations. And here I am, seeking the concept and language from myths to express it.

Atomic priesthood is a concept for a future religious-scientific order tasked with guarding knowledge of dangerous nuclear waste sites for millennia, long after our current civilization collapses. To simplify it, how do we warn future civilizations about dangers they cannot see, in languages they do not speak, using symbols and myths they may not recognize? Because nuclear waste will remain lethal long after our political systems, scientific institutions, and current social systems have long gone.

These questions are not just speculative, because they are already embedded in the earth. One of the examples is Onkalo, Finland’s deep geological repository for spent nuclear fuel. It is carved into ancient bedrock and designed to remain sealed for roughly 100,000 years. It is intended to outlast languages, nations, and maybe any recognizable forms of social life. What is interesting is, the site is consciously left unmarked once it is closed. Because any warning might invite curiosity, and curiosity might lead to excavation, and then, excavation might awaken what was meant to sleep.

Myths and Warnings

Landscape of Thorns

One of the reasons I believe religions survived this long is because myths survive when our manuals or instructions fail. And the core of myth is, fear, which I think travels farther than information. And the concept of atomic priesthood is designed on this very thing. Certain places must become unapproachable, and to stay that way, they need to be feared. Myths are told and continued because they are not understood, and we take a myth as a myth, and the fear it brings in. So the future generations need not understand why certain places are unapproachable; they just have to be feared. That means it requires future humans must be lied to for their own good.

This brings me back to my previous point on how we compensate when it’s too late. We build another system or control mechanism when something has gone beyond our hands to control. That is where the shem comes into the picture. It becomes our responsibility to remove the shem, but mind you, this is not something we do out of ethical responsibility. We do it because it is necessary for survival. With all the advanced and powerful technology, let it be AI or nuclear, can the shem be removed from the mouth of the golem? Or is it too late? Have we passed the point where the removal could be possible? Which is leaving us with only rituals or stories of warning, because atomic priesthood, to me, seems to be one.

Can the Shem Be Removed?

It reminds me of the scene in the Oppenheimer movie when he realizes, what have we created?! That admission! To admit that we created something we cannot fully undo. The question, then, is not only whether the shem can be removed. It is whether we will still recognize it when the moment comes?

I think creation itself is not the crime, because it never has been. The impulse to create is what made us curious, take for example tool making or storytelling. Without these, there would be no civilization, no science, no art, no language in which to even pose these questions. Expecting humanity to stop creating is neither realistic nor honest. The Golems always exist because we cannot resist giving life to what we want to explore. Then, the ethical burden is in knowing when a creation has gone beyond its purpose and has lost its meaning. Nuclear waste buried deep, and intelligent systems that learn beyond their designer present us the same ancient Golem problem in different forms.

So, will there be anyone left who remembers that the shem was placed there by human hands, and that it can, in principle, be removed by them as well?

Yours in thought,
Yana

Frankenstein’s Letters: Cost of Elevated Dreams

Saiyana Ramisetty — Sun, 30 Nov 2025 11:40:27 GMT

I’m writing this just after finishing the introduction and Captain Walton’s letters in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. It’s my first encounter with the novel, and everything I’m about to say comes from that incomplete vantage point, from early assumptions and intuitions of a story I haven’t yet seen in full.

Dear Reader,

When I opened Frankenstein, I expected Victor in his laboratory, hands shaking while operating on his creation. Instead, I found letters! (Captain Robert Walton’s letters to his sister Margaret). And you know that I love letters because they are intimate and they reveal character in ways direct narration cannot.

Every Catastrophe Has a Prelude

The more Walton wrote, the more I felt I was watching a man who is both ambitious and terribly lonely. And that combination makes me feel uneasy because it so often ends in self-inflicted tragedy. I can only fathom how letter writing in 19th-century literature wasn’t some narrative technique but a way to explore interiority, to reveal the private thoughts characters wouldn’t speak aloud. I think, in Walton’s letters, it is a deliberate effort to say that not just what happens, but the temperament that makes catastrophe inevitable.

All the ice Walton describes feels like the kind of cold a person could carry when they convince themselves that destiny requires isolation. The Arctic expedition he’s gone to; how extremely ambitious, frozen, and remote. But it is beautiful in its danger. When the rescued stranger (I assume it’s Victor) warns Walton of the dangers of ambition and the hunger to traverse a path “no man has ever” walked, I wondered if Walton is mirroring Victor without even knowing it.

Perhaps that’s why Mary chose this beginning. Not to show us the monsters first, but to show us the making of monsters. I came to believe that every catastrophe has a prelude. And these letters are that prelude.

Ambition Wrapped in Longing

Strange as it sounds, Walton feels like the kind of friend I could recognize. In his letters, he keeps insisting he needs a “friend,” yet what he longs for isn’t the companionship of equals. He wants someone who understands the “elevated” nature of his dreams. That word, “elevated,” reflects something in me too. I’ve spent years seeking validation for my own ambitions, sometimes without admitting it. I remember working late into the night on projects I convinced myself would change everything, feeling simultaneously elated and isolated, wondering if anyone could truly understand what drove me.

If the rescued stranger is indeed Victor, Walton sees in him the romantic figure he wanted to become: brilliant, melancholic, driven, tortured by his own potential. It made me think about how we often see in others the parts of ourselves we haven’t yet examined. Walton projects his idealized self onto Victor, not realizing he’s looking at his own future ruin.

The parallel becomes clearer when you examine their language: Walton writes of his “ardent curiosity” and desire for “glory.” Victor (from what I gather) speaks of his “fervent longing” to penetrate nature’s secrets.

Walton wants friendship and discovery (sailing into it willingly). What he gets is a warning in human form. Victor wanted creation (venturing into forbidden knowledge) and is the endgame of Walton’s journey.

Creation Without Consequence

Victor was once a man who dreamed the way Walton dreams now. But both men speak of destiny the way we modern humans speak of “vision” and “impact,” as if noble intentions exonerate us of responsibility for what we unleash.

History, both literary and real, has always shown us that the world does not protect us from the consequences of what we create simply because we meant well.

Consider modern parallels:

Social media platforms designed to “connect people” that now amplify misinformation and erode mental health.
Genetic engineering promising to cure disease while opening ethical dilemmas about human enhancement.

The ways of life will accelerate the ruin and inevitably test the creation. And if we haven’t built in ethical guardrails, if we haven’t considered the downstream effects, then we become like Victor: brilliant in conception, catastrophic in execution.

The Problem of Sympathy

As I read, I found myself questioning the reliability of Walton’s narration. Not because I think he’s lying, but because he’s human. And humans rarely represent themselves without adornment. Yet I sympathize with him. Perhaps too easily.

Which brings me to a question:

Sympathy has many forms, and it could even be manipulative. How reliable is it? And what does sympathy mean if we don’t actually understand the person we claim to feel for?

I think sympathy comes first, judgment later. But sympathy without understanding might be its own kind of narcissism: we feel for others because we see ourselves in them, not because we truly grasp their experience. Walton gains my sympathy because I recognize his loneliness and ambition. But am I sympathizing with him or with the version of myself I see reflected in his words?

The Soul-Monsters We Create

Great tragedies, in fiction or reality, rarely begin with a dramatic moment. They often begin with slight imbalances, and mostly a longing that is too intense. Closing Walton’s letters, I feel I’m not simply going to read about a monster born in a laboratory, but about the monsters ambition can carve inside the human soul long before any physical creation, when created without moral foresight.

But who am I to decide whether what is created is a monster or an angel?

Even beyond Victor and the Creature, there remains a question worth thinking about:

What does it mean to create anything (a life, an idea, a technology, a system) without considering the consequences it sets in motion? And how do we even begin to approach this responsibility?

Perhaps the rest of the novel will complicate the question further. For now, I’m thinking that monsters are born in the spaces between ambition and accountability, in the precise gap between what we can do and what we should do.

Until next time, yours in thought,
Yana

P.S. If you’ve read Frankenstein, I’d love to hear your thoughts on these opening letters. Did they strike you the same way? Or did I miss something crucial in my first reading? Let’s talk about it!

The Woman I Misplaced Somewhere in the Chaos (I Didn’t Mean To)

Saiyana Ramisetty — Sun, 23 Nov 2025 19:00:49 GMT

You can be doing everything “right” and still lose the person you once were or you are chasing to be; when you are busy being everything for everyone, and everyone for everything.

Dear Reader,

I know it’s been so long since I last wrote to you. There are seasons when everything accelerates at once — work, ambition, expectations, and even our own inner voice that persistently keeps telling us to be productive, be relevant, and be visible. The past 3–4 months have been exactly that for me.

To be honest, I haven’t read or written anything. I kept telling myself I’d return “after this one sprint,” “after this one deadline,” and sometimes “after this one fire is put out.” And, as always, life had other ideas.

In parallel, my corporate life unfurled into something far more intense than I had planned. This year was a lot! I’ll say that plainly: it felt like ten years folded into one. But it also clarified what matters to me, why it matters, and how I want to show up. Not just in my job, but in my life.

Earlier this month, I completed my Oxford Critical Reading course. Oh gosh! That was a packed course, given I have a full-time corporate job. However, I do think it was worth it; it did reshape how I read, think, and write. It taught me to look at a sentence not as a flow of words, but like a design or an architecture. One thing I learned from the course is that good reading is never a passive act, and good writing, even less so.

Quick update: Many of you have asked for my procedure and framework for coming up with the English Literature Personal Curriculum. I’ll write a blog post on this soon, explaining the research and thought process that went into building it.

Now, I have come to a point where I don’t recognize myself. The very things that make me who I am — the woman who used to read, think, and write deeply — have vanished. So I decided to slow everything down. Making slight changes to recalibrate my own system that has been running too hot for too long, in an endless constant loop.

But really, there is always a strange clarity that comes after a long period of sprinting. You start to recognize what is noise and what is an actual signal. And then decide what deserves your energy and what consumes it. And then again, when you understand that, you realize what aligns with your vision and what distracts you from it.

And, if you know me already, I love the “ber-months”! Mostly because of Christmas, because it makes me pause and hug myself. So this Christmas, I decided to gift myself this —

tidy up, rest, be gentle and good to myself; and for once stop worrying about others, but myself.

Just before I sat down to write this letter to you, I went to my bookshelf and gazed at it for so long. It felt very strange, because I don’t even remember when the last time I did this was. I browsed and finally picked up Middlemarch by George Eliot.

You might be thinking that a sane person might choose something lighter after months away from reading. But hey, here I am, with Middlemarch beside me. I wanted something that would force me to slow my pace and rebuild the attention with some intention. And Middlemarch, so dense and intricate, felt like the right kind. Perhaps this would be my way of returning to myself.

For now, I’ll be reading and keep thinking about three things, which I hope to find answers to from this gem of a book. You will hear a lot about it, in detailed, in my upcoming letters!

Why do intelligent people make disastrous choices?
What kills ambition faster: society, or our own illusions?
Why do we compromise the very dreams we are trying to protect?

I’ll write you another year-end letter soon, something more complete which holds 2025 with both hands. But after such a long absence from this space, I didn’t want to wait until then to speak to you.

I simply wanted to say: I’m back.

If you’re hearing from me for the first time, thank you.

If you’ve stayed, thank you.

If you’ve waited, thank you.

And if you’re reading this at the edge of your own slowdown and return — as always, I hope you find this space to give you that calm and make you choose what matters for you too.

I’ll write again soon. Until next time, take care. Enjoy the holiday season.

And, more importantly, my dear, do what matters to you.

Until then,
Yours in thought,
Yana

Week 40, 2025 In Reveries

Saiyana Ramisetty — Sun, 05 Oct 2025 12:38:47 GMT

Preface

Did you ever wonder if pleasure and happiness are engineered, would you feel the same way about them? What if there are two triggers for happiness that you feel — one being what you are told will make you happy, and the other, which is the truth, that comes from within you? Is there any comfort in it if there is no true meaning to it?

This is what I kept wondering while reading Chapters 4-6 of Huxley’s Brave New World through the eyes of three characters who juggle between these states from which they draw their happiness and pleasure.

It is so uncanny how a book written nearly a century ago still feels like it is speaking to our present. It makes me wonder if these were always the problems of human fulfillment, but they have only changed attires so they seem different in different centuries and eras.

I have also made significant progress in my Oxford critical reading course, where I had to analyze poetry and work on an assignment. Thoroughly enjoyed it! Next week I am going to learn more about how to analyze narrative prose better. And that, dear, is what I am very interested in!

Note: From next week onwards, you will receive one In Reveries Digest every fortnight instead of every week. I have consciously taken this decision so I can focus on consuming and creating meaningful content. This comes from an inspiration I took from the book itself.

“Words can be like X-rays, if you use them properly—they’ll go through anything. You read and you are pierced.” — Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

And I surely do want to bring you something which will pierce you!

Between Pages

The third essay in my Manufactured Minds series is on Chapters 4-6. I explored Huxley’s vision of engineered pleasure through Bernard, Lenina, and Helmholtz.

If pleasure can be manufactured, does it retain any meaning at all?

Relevant Archive

If you would like to read through my first two pieces in the Manufactured Minds series on BNW, this is the collection so far:

Essay 1: Preface

Essay 2: Chapters 1-3

Thoughts to Hold

These are a few recent wandering thoughts!

Until Next Time

As this check-in comes to a close, I am grateful for the time we have spent wandering together through ideas and words. I look forward to reconnecting with you in the next digest.

Until then, my dear, take care of yourself.

Yours in thought,
Yana

P.S. I pour my heart into every word I write, and it means the world to have you here. Also, please consider sharing it with others who might appreciate this space for intellectual exploration.

Two Dolls Dream of Happiness But Not Pleasure

Saiyana Ramisetty — Sat, 04 Oct 2025 11:02:30 GMT

“Words can be like X-rays, if you use them properly — they’ll go through anything. You read and you are pierced.”— Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

Note: This is the third essay in the read-list series on Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. If you feel disconnected, I suggest you read the first two essays. [Preface, Essay 1]

The Abyss by Pietro Canonica

Dear Reader,

If pleasure can be manufactured, does it retain any meaning at all? In Brave New World, chapters 4-6 revolve around this one question. At this point, the society Huxley builds is no longer asking what is good, but only what feels good.

And for this, not just the people, but desire itself is conditioned, emotions are engineered, and if there is any discontent, they make it disappear with soma (a drug which apparently drowns one in happiness).

In these chapters, I meet Bernard, Lenina, and Helmholtz. In this essay, we will discuss soma’s conditioned pleasure, these three characters, and how Huxley’s world resembles ours with respect to pleasure. This brings me back to the starting two questions —

Is pleasure, when engineered, losing its meaning and becoming just a distraction?
In our modern times, is it enough to feel good, or must we still ask what is good?

Soma: The Illusion of Happiness

After all, the whole story is centered around “soma,” which is the state’s answer to every nuisance. Think of it as a tool for control, which creates happiness (correcting myself, phantom happiness). But what it is doing is to suppress discontent. I think escapism is its function, so the people in this brave new world are just anesthetized. If you think about it this way, it is a question of pleasure vs. distraction vs. freedom.

In the story, Bernard, however, resists this. That was very interesting, because even after taking soma at a social event, he does not feel connected to others. He still has his self-consciousness, as if there is a kernel within him that cannot be chemically dissolved. I am very curious to see what else can withstand soma’s effect.

I could not help but relate this to our phantom dopamine hits from doom-scrolling endlessly, feeling distracted but just not filling that void within us. Not just dopamine scrolling, but the broader commodification of pleasure in consumer capitalism. Huxley is selling soma as a pill, but dear, we already have soma in our hands right now — in the form of social media or AI.

Bernard: The Insecure Misfit

Reading Bernard was like looking at two faces of a coin. I was frustrated with him sometimes and felt so sorry for him for the rest. He is so pitifully trapped in this world because he feels too much and too little at once. His problem is that he is not rejecting the world entirely, but he is not able to surrender to it, and it felt so relevant.

He is small in stature (according to the standards of Alpha), insecure, and painfully aware of the injustice of the caste system. Unlike others of his class, he does not enjoy the privilege he gets. He sees the Epsilons and Deltas not simply as labor, but as fated sufferers of a destiny they did not choose.

But this pity is complicated: does he feel sorry for them, or does he feel sorry for himself for being unable to accept his own superiority with the same ease as his peers? It is like double-edged; he cannot bear the suffering beneath him, but he also cannot bear the unease within himself. And in that way, he feels lonely with this not-fitting into the world.

He wants independence, but also recognition. He seeks truth, but also the comfort of belonging. He is both critic and hypocrite — a man who despises the world but still craves its approval.

Helmholtz: The Hungry Soul

Reading Helmholtz, I felt a shock of recognition. This man is in contrast with Bernard. He is handsome, intelligent, confident, everything that Bernard thinks he is not. But wait, every good thing comes with some baggage. This man is plagued by an emptiness of another kind: the hunger for meaning he cannot articulate. (I have a hunch, he is going to be my favorite in the coming chapters, let’s see — he has a hungry soul.)

He is a lecturer and an emotional engineer, who manufactures hypnopaedic rhymes and “feely” scenarios which are used for conditioning as emotional fodder of the World State. But the crucial problem he sees is, he feels as though his words are wasted.

“Did you ever feel as though you had something inside you that was only waiting for you to give it a chance to come out? Some sort of extra power that you aren’t using?” he asks.

And that is the voice of a soul in exile. He is just not able to find it or, I should rather say, figure out how to find it. He feels the necessity of expression but is not finding any subject worthy of it, because everything is superficial and manufactured.

This man! In this man, I could feel my own restlessness, the sense of something inside waiting to be said, the power to say it but no clear way to bring it forth.

Did you ever feel that way? I do, when I immerse myself into literature and philosophy. It gives me the way to turn yearning into meaning.

Lenina: The Conditioned Believer

Reading Lenina, I wanted to shake her and say, wake up girl!” She embodies the perfect conditioning. So thoroughly conditioned that she cannot tell if she believes what she says. I think she just repeats what she has been taught.

There are a few scenes in these chapters where Bernard desires intimacy — time alone with her, to talk, and to know each other. And Lenina, she strongly prefers activity, noise, and drama. This kind of conditioning makes me think that even the simplest human instincts, the wish for connection, have been reframed as abnormal.

To her, monogamy is absurd, solitude is unbearable, and discomfort is a mistake to be swiftly corrected with soma. I cannot fault her for being wrong, because she is only incapable of imagining otherwise. Her tragedy is that she does not know she is tragic; and there is no way for her to know that.

I think some of us can relate to her too, those who mistake the absence of pain for the presence of joy!

She fears being in solitude (which is unnatural in this world) and is compelled toward noise and company. And I think this is what is exposing the system’s greatest fear:

To be alone is to think, and thinking is the gravest threat to order — a seed of rebellion.

The Wheel of Caste / Class

If you are not aware of the class/caste system in this world, I suggest you read it in the first two essays. Running beneath all these character studies is the wheel of caste. Each group is conditioned to love its lot, especially the lower ones, so there is no other possibility that can be imagined.

Gammas, Deltas, and Epsilons are conditioned to love their lives, even how miserable they might feel to someone looking from the outside. Those at the top see the misery beneath but dismiss it as natural order. And yet, the great illusion in this world is that everyone is happy. It is selfish happiness, happiness purchased at the expense of awareness.

Generally, we seek happiness, but in this world, it is given as a default (although it is disguised as pleasure). That makes me question: is there a meaning to unhappiness then, to make this happiness even sweeter? The other saddest thing is, this conditioning is not just causing suffering, but it is completely erasing the imagination that things could be otherwise.

Can you imagine living in a world that does not let you imagine possibilities? That scares me!

Thoughts to Leave With

Between Bernard’s guilt (resist without confidence), Helmholtz’s yearning (resist with hunger), and Lenina’s conditioning (does not resist at all), Huxley presents three ways of living under a manufactured world.

Reading these three chapters brought an interesting thought to me: even in a world where every instinct is conditioned, there still is human restlessness. We cannot abolish the longing, but just suppress or silence it, with some distraction like soma, or whatever you relate to. Helmholtz is the proof of this: he has everything the World State deems desirable — intelligence, charm, professional success; yet he knows something is missing. A hunger for words that are not empty, for feelings that are not pre-decided.

Now, where are we presently? Are we not already living softer versions of this reality? We, too, drown silence in constant noise. We, too, consume pleasures that cost us nothing and thus mean nothing. We, too, sometimes mistake distraction for happiness.

I can leave you with the thought that, in this world of dolls, I insist that humanity cannot survive on engineered pleasure alone. To be human is to long, to hunger, to yearn, to fight with the discontent. And reading Helmholtz, who feels this most clearly, it is Huxley’s early warning that meaning cannot be manufactured. It must be sought and suffered for.

I would love to discuss with you! How do you see Huxley’s factory world in our own lives?

In the next post of this series, I will share my reflections on Chapters 7-10 of Brave New World, on how to measure progress and at what cost.

Will soon knock at your mind’s door with my thoughts!

Until then,
Yours in thought,
Yana

Manufactured Minds: Read-list series on Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World

Preface
Ch. 1-3: We, the Manufactured Dolls of the World Factory
Ch. 4-6: The Conditioned Pleasure House (Current)
Ch. 7-10: Coming soon…

Week 39, 2025 In Reveries

Saiyana Ramisetty — Sun, 28 Sep 2025 05:06:24 GMT

Preface

For many reasons, this was a quieter week; but the one I will remember for its moments. It witnessed:

a piece of my writing finding its way into a zine,
a thought was outlined,
a project began in secret,
and the dear loss of a family member, who was a well wisher for my writing.

In my Oxford course, a new unit re-introduced me to poetry. I have always leaned more towards prose, but this return is reminding me how a single line of verse can hold more than whole chapters of narrative/prose.

And in the background, while I took some time off work, I began sketching the outlines of my first novel.

Yes, at last! I have taken that first step toward my debut - it is a story in a world circling the theme of memory and cost to hold on to them.

So dear, yes, this week has been quiet, but it feels like it is preparing me for the ones where thoughts and creation spill over. Somehow, it does not feel finished, but yeah, beginnings rarely do.

Between Pages

I could not resume my Brave New World series, and it is still waiting on my desk to be tended to. However, I plan to bring it to a close in the coming days, and with it, a flood of notes and reflections. I want to spend a lot of time particularly on the questions it will bring to me.

What did find its way into the world, however, was my short essay published in Firelight Zine (Piece #19) by Planet Ral!

This is my first ever contribution to a “Zine”. What an extraordinary collection of diverse voices and creative works have been assembled here!

Relevant Archive

If you would like to read through my first two pieces in the Manufactured Minds series on Brave New World, this is the collection so far.

Thoughts to Hold

An update on the personal curriculum: We are forming a small cohort (online - chat based) who are interested in studying my curriculum on Oxford English Literature with me. If any of you want to join, comment on my post or reply. I will share the details shortly.

These are a few wandering thoughts from this week!

I read this beauty in my course! I was so mesmerised about how a thought is shared and lived on in different forms. In Ozymandias: the sculptor reads the king’s face, the traveler reads the inscription, the narrator listens to the traveler, and finally, we read the poem. All of this in these few lines of words!

Until Next Week

Soon, my notes on Brave New World will spill out, but for now, I just wanted to say hi and catch-up. As the week comes to a close, I am grateful for the time we have spent wandering together through ideas and words. I look forward to sharing more next Sunday.

Until then, my dear, take care of yourself.

Yours in thought,
Yana

P.S. I pour my heart into every word I write, and it means the world to have you here. Also, please consider sharing it with others who might appreciate this space for intellectual exploration.