7.7, Kama muta

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.” — Will Durant

May 21

Friends:

This week, I learnt about kama muta, which is a Sanskrit word that refers to an intense feeling of a sudden wave of love. It is a powerful, social emotion; being suddenly overcome or moved or touched or swept away by love.

So when you cry because your favorite sports team wins (or loses) an important championship, or you’re overcome while listening to Adele’s latest weepie, or when a mother holds her baby for the first time, or even watching those airport reunion scenes in Love Actually, you’re feeling kama muta.

Like most things in life, it can be repurposed for bad purposes too! A charismatic politician summoning kama muta against a declared “enemy”, and so on.

It’s such an interesting concept, and it’s described in one of this week’s articles.

So, onwards with the links!

The Rundown

The Logic of Rage from Hidden Brain (49 minutes) (podcast)

Where does red hot anger come from?

Doug had to give a talk at the conference that afternoon, in the morning, he and Kelly decided to visit a famous Barcelona cathedral. Now, it would seem like too much bad luck to get robbed again, but...
This wasn't a decoy wallet, it was the real thing with all the cash that Doug's brother had wired him from the United States. Something snapped inside the 57-year-old neuroscientist. He was done being used as a portable ATM by European thieves.

The mundanity of excellence

The process of becoming excellent is rather ordinary; nearly anyone can do it. Excellence can’t be attributed entirely to possessing talent or special gifts. Mostly, excellence is a habit. #longread

I’m Not a Look-Alike: Hundreds of Unrelated Doppelgängers

Why Babies Are So Cute — And Why We React the Way We Do

This article took quite a turn...

Perhaps unexpectedly, the science of cuteness starts with Nazis.

Tiktok is obsessed with nepotism babies

…there’s a whole community of working class fans on TikTok exposing famous people who turn out to be a “nepotism baby”, a term coined by Gen Zers to describe celebs who, put simply, are only celebs because their family members are in the ‘biz too.

Open for a Surprise 🔎