Make the things
In my first couple of years at university, I was set an essay in German on the question: “Work to live or live to work?” Most of the students thought the answer was obvious. Work to live. I wasn’t so sure.At the time, I was certain I was going to be a biologist, a field biologist, living the work 24/7. I had already been persuaded into molecular biology with chemistry, and it would take a couple of years to realise that pivoting back to field work later would not be as simple as I thought. Plus I'd started searching outside science for answers. Certainly “live to work” made more sense to me, except that didn’t seem quite right either. Why put work and life on opposite sides in the first place?I wrote the essay without answering the question. Our German teacher had studied philosophy, so perhaps that was the point. If he wanted us to keep thinking about it, he managed that. Twenty-plus years later, denke ich immer noch darüber nach, und ich kenne die Antwort noch immer nicht.I do know that a strict 9–5 has never made sense to me. I knew that when I was 8 years old. If I care about something at 4:50pm, I still care about it at 5:10pm. I’ve never really thought work should sit outside life. It's a part of it.
Lois Mendelsohn
Business
I was already, always really, someone who analysed everything. Science gave me more reasons to keep doing that, which was probably not always helpful.For a while, I liked standing outside of things to try to understand why they happened, and imagining myself to be a neutral observer.Then I became more interested in what happened when I stopped leaving myself out of the picture, or pretending that anyone really ever could.
By the time I left the lab in 2014, I already knew I wanted to become properly familiar with business.I’d done bits before, sure, but never really imagined it as a serious path. That changed in 2012, when I met someone who helped me see it differently. I became aware of my unknown unknowns, which is where everyone starts in learning anything.He was 70 then, and became a close friend and an extraordinary mentor. We stayed close until he died at 74, far too soon.After the lab, I started consciously learning business: sales, marketing, finance, accounting, strategy, psychology, communication, and the digital tools that make so much of it possible.I’d always liked English and other languages a lot, but thought one only really needed them if they had something worth saying. I still think there is some truth in that.
While Unwordy was founded in the UK and India (while I was based in India) in 2021, I had started this work long before.It had started as something slightly different back in 2014, and I'd thought I'd only do that for 2-3 years, but in 2021 it had remained the way I was doing most projects I was working on. I ran it as a company from India for 2 years, then returned to the UK in October 2023, and continued similar work as a freelancer, selling (/transferring) the company to new owners back in Hyderabad.
This new brand comes from some personal requirements in food that I thought others might also have. I'll share more about it soon.
Books
Reading books - having books, buying them, loaning them and reading them.
Also - now working on writing them, putting that here to get it done... these are in the works. If I get at least one of these completed, that'll be good.
Contact / Links
That Telegraph Article
In August 2024 I was featured in an article in The Telegraph about some changes in British society after October 7th - what was said there was the journalist's interpretation of what I said, which worked for his article. What really happened was that in the months since October 7th, one friend of Irish origin had started posting support for Hamas, from days after October 7th. I'd tried to debate this but of course I was told that they felt very sorry if I felt it wasn't a suitable response but that it was really justified. That friend happens to work in the Houses of Parliament for the Labour party. We stopped talking completely after discussing it a few times. I did read some of the narrative from the other side's lauded experts to try to understand their view point, but it was all from a place of self-hate and apologising for existing. Jewish nor western people need not apologise for existing - nor seek to find people to blame for their own self hate. I don't think that Netanyahu chose everything perfectly in what he did in response, far from it, and like many people I don't like it, and find it too harsh, but I am also aware that when Hamas make statements about aiming to kill Jews and celebrate when they do, enthusiastically praising others who "achieve this", that is very much real too.
“Before we can forgive one another, we have to understand one another.”
Emma Goldman
“Pelorat sighed. 'I will never understand people.'
'There's nothing to it. All you have to do is take a close look at yourself and you will understand everyone else.”
Isaac Asimov, Foundation's Edge
“A person who does not understand your soul can give you only winter! And you too, you can give nothing but winter to the person whose soul you did not understand!”
Mehmet Murat ildan
“To understand the man you have to know what was happening in the world when he was twenty.”
Napoleon
“That's the whole point of being human, to accept each other despite lacking comprehension.”
Abhijit Naskar
“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view.”
Harper Lee
I, like all people, have biases from my own experiences. I don't deny mine nor those of others.