The secret of innovation

We always wonder about the creative process. How do people come up with new ideas? How can we get our staff to come up with innovative products? What is the secret of the most innovative companies? What do people like Steve Jobs have to teach us about the nitty gritty of the creative product development?

For a long time, aside from the lone geniuses like Einstein, it was the received wisdom that the best way to come up with innovative ideas was brainstorming. Many a book was written on how to brainstorm. One of the earliest ones was by Osborne who based on his experience in the ad world , touted the success of the brainstorming approach to innovation and creativity.

His book outlined the essential rules of a successful brainstorming session. The most important of these, —the thing that distinguishes brainstorming from other types of group activity—was the absence of criticism and negative feedback. If people were worried that their ideas might be ridiculed by the group, the process would fail. “Creativity is so delicate a flower that praise tends to make it bloom while discouragement often nips it in the bud,” he wrote. “Forget quality; aim now to get a quantity of answers. When you’re through, your sheet of paper may be so full of ridiculous nonsense that you’ll be disgusted. Never mind. You’re loosening up your unfettered imagination—making your mind deliver.” 

Brainstorming enshrined a no-judgments approach to holding a meeting. The underlying assumption of brainstorming was that if people are scared of saying the wrong thing, they’ll end up saying nothing at all. The appeal of this idea is obvious: it’s always nice to be saturated in positive feedback. Typically, participants leave a brainstorming session proud of their contribution. The whiteboard has been filled with free associations. Brainstorming seems like an ideal technique, a feel-good way to boost productivity.

But there is a problem with brainstorming. It doesn’t always work. 

Decades of research have consistently shown that brainstorming groups think of far fewer ideas than the same number of people who work alone and later pool their ideas. And yet Osborn was right about one thing: like it or not, human creativity has increasingly become a group process. “Many of us can work much better creatively when teamed up,” he wrote, noting that the trend was particularly apparent in science labs.

Today scientific advances have led to a situation where all the remaining problems are incredibly hard. Researchers are forced to become increasingly specialized, because there’s only so much information one mind can handle. And they have to collaborate, because the most interesting mysteries lie at the intersections of disciplines. Advances in knowledge, coupled with the escalating difficulty of those remaining questions, means that people must either work together or fail alone.

But if brainstorming is useless, the question still remains: What’s the best template for group creativity?

Charlan Nemeth, a professor of psychology at the University of California at Berkeley carried out a number of experiments to test various templates for creativity. In Nemeth’s view, “While the instruction ‘Do not criticize’ is often cited as the important instruction in brainstorming, this appears to be a counterproductive strategy. Our findings show that debate and criticism do not inhibit ideas but, rather, stimulate them relative to every other condition.” Osborn thought that imagination is inhibited by the merest hint of criticism, but Nemeth’s work and a number of other studies have demonstrated that it can thrive on conflict.

According to Nemeth, dissent stimulates new ideas because it encourages us to engage more fully with the work of others and to reassess our viewpoints. “There’s this Pollyannaish notion that the most important thing to do when working together is stay positive and get along, to not hurt anyone’s feelings,” she says. “Well, that’s just wrong. Maybe debate is going to be less pleasant, but it will always be more productive. True creativity requires some trade-offs.” Another of her experiments demonstrated that exposure to unfamiliar perspectives can foster creativity. Even when alternative views are clearly wrong, being exposed to them still expands our creative potential. In a way, the power of dissent is the power of surprise. After hearing someone shout out an errant answer, we work to understand it, which causes us to reassess our initial assumptions and try out new perspectives. Authentic dissent can be difficult, but it’s always invigorating, because it wakes us right up. Criticism allows people to dig below the surface of the imagination and come up with collective ideas that aren’t predictable. And recognizing the importance of conflicting perspectives in a group raises the issue of what kinds of people will work together best and how to ensure that they do.

A few years ago, Isaac Kohane, a researcher at Harvard Medical School, published a study that looked at scientific research conducted by groups in an attempt to determine what effect physical proximity had on the quality of the research.  He found that if you want people to work together effectively, there is a need to create architectures that support frequent, physical, spontaneous interactions. Even in the era of big science, when researchers spend so much time on the Internet, it was still important to create intimate spaces.

One fanatical believer in the power of space to enhance the work of groups was Steve Jobs. When Jobs was planning Pixar’s headquarters, in 1999, he had the building arranged around a central atrium, so that Pixar’s diverse staff of artists, writers, and computer scientists would run into each other more often. Jobs soon realized that it wasn’t enough simply to create an airy atrium; he needed to force people to go there. He began with the mailboxes, which he shifted to the lobby. Then he moved the meeting rooms to the center of the building, followed by the cafeteria, the coffee bar, and the gift shop. Finally, he decided that the atrium should contain the only set of bathrooms in the entire building. He really believed that the best meetings happened by accident, in the hallway or parking lot. Jobs made it impossible for staff not to run into the rest of the company.

Another example of this grew entirely by accident. Building 20  at MIT became a strange, chaotic domain, full of groups who had been thrown together by chance and who knew little about one another’s work. And yet, by the time it was finally demolished, in 1998, Building 20 had become a legend of innovation, widely regarded as one of the most creative spaces in the world. In the postwar decades, scientists working there pioneered a stunning list of breakthroughs, from advances in high-speed photography to the development of the physics behind microwaves. Building 20 was full of knowledge spillovers.

Building 20 served as an incubator for the Bose Corporation.  Take the career of Amar Bose. In the spring of 1956, Bose, a music enthusiast, procrastinating in writing his dissertation, decided to buy a hi-fi. He chose the system with the best technical specs, but found that the speakers sounded terrible. Bose realized that the science of hi-fi needed help and began frequenting the Acoustics Lab, which was just down the hall. Before long, Bose was spending more time playing with tweeters than he was on his dissertation. Nobody minded the interloper in the lab, and, three years later, Bose produced a wedge-shaped contraption outfitted with twenty-two speakers, a synthesis of his time among the engineers and his musical sensibility. The Bose Corporation was founded soon afterward.

 Building 20 ranks as one of the most creative environments of all time, a space with an almost uncanny ability to extract the best from people. Among M.I.T. people, it was referred to as “the magical incubator.”

The fatal misconception behind brainstorming has been that there is a particular script we should all follow in group interactions. The lesson of Steve Jobs and Building 20 is that when the composition of the group is right—enough people with different perspectives running into one another in unpredictable ways—the group dynamic will take care of itself. All these errant discussions will finally add up. In fact, they may even be the most essential part of the creative process. The most creative spaces are those which hurl us together and it is the human friction that makes the sparks.

The new loneliness

Over the past three decades, technology has delivered to us a world in which we need not be out of contact with other even for a fraction of a moment. Iphones, Ipads, Facebook etc are all technological gifts of the last decade that have made this possible. The fact is that now almost everyone has an iphone or blackberry that they feel compelled to look at all the time lest they miss by a nano second some breaking news or an email. At how many parties do you see people looking down on their blackberries while trying to converse with some one standing or sitting next to them. When I questioned one who was listening to my diatribe on technology while simulaneously pecking on her blackberry, listening to her iphone  and having an ipad on her lap, and said that maybe they were insulting the speaker by looking down on their blackberries rather than at him, the response was that they could multitask!

But within this world of instant and absolute communication, unbounded by limits of time or space, it is clear that we are now suffering from an unprecedented alienation. We may be interconnected to a major degree yet it seems that we have never been more detached from one another, or lonelier. Various studies have shown loneliness rising drastically over a very short period of recent history. A 2010 AARP survey found that 35 percent of adults older than 45 were chronically lonely, as opposed to 20 percent of a similar group only a decade earlier. According to another major study by a leading scholar of the subject, roughly 20 percent of Americans—about 60 million people—are unhappy with their lives because of loneliness. 

In a world consumed by ever more novel modes of socializing, we have less and less actual society. But it is clear that social interaction matters. Now we meet fewer people for we are interconnected and can read the facebook pages cant we? We gather less. And when we gather, our bonds are less meaningful and less easy. The decrease in confidants—that is, in quality social connections—has been dramatic over the past 25 years. In one survey, the mean size of networks of personal confidants decreased from 2.94 people in 1985 to 2.08 in 2004. Similarly, in 1985, only 10 percent of Americans said they had no one with whom to discuss important matters, and 15 percent said they had only one such good friend. By 2004, 25 percent had nobody to talk to, and 20 percent had only one confidant. Steven March makes the same argument taking Facebook as an example in this article.  "A considerable part of Facebook’s appeal stems from its miraculous fusion of distance with intimacy, or the illusion of distance with the illusion of intimacy. Our online communities become engines of self-image, and self-image becomes the engine of community. The real danger with Facebook is not that it allows us to isolate ourselves, but that by mixing our appetite for isolation with our vanity, it threatens to alter the very nature of solitude. "


We now live in an accelerating contradiction: the more connected we become, the lonelier we seem to be becoming. We were promised a global village; instead we inhabit the drab cul-de-sacs and endless freeways of a vast suburb of information. We know intuitively that loneliness and being alone are not the same thing. Solitude can be lovely. Crowded parties can be agony. We also know, thanks to a growing body of research on the topic, that loneliness is not a matter of external conditions; it is a psychological state.

We also know that being lonely is extremely bad for your health. If you’re lonely, you’re more likely to be put in a geriatric home at an earlier age than a similar person who isn’t lonely. You’re less likely to exercise. You’re more likely to be obese. You’re less likely to survive a serious operation and more likely to have hormonal imbalances. You are at greater risk of inflammation. Your memory may be worse. You are more likely to be depressed, to sleep badly, and to suffer dementia and general cognitive decline.

And yet, despite its deleterious effect on health, loneliness is one of the first things ordinary Americans spend their money achieving. With money, you flee the cramped city to a house in the suburbs or, if you can afford it, a McMansion in the exurbs, inevitably spending more time in your car. You buy these gadgets like iphone and blackberry which further isolate you from direct human interactions. These omnipresent new technologies inevitably lure us toward increasingly superficial connections at exactly the same moment that they make avoiding the mess of human interaction easy.

It is time we understood that a connection is not the same thing as a bond, and that instant and total connection is no salvation, no ticket to a happier, better world or a more liberated version of humanity. Solitude used to be good for self-reflection and self-reinvention. But now we are left thinking about who we are all the time, without ever really thinking about who we are. 

Sitting of the fence

In the past few weeks,  I have been disturbed by a number of my well meaning readers, expressing despair at Obama's record and saying that what he has done is not enough and that they were thinking of staying home in the November elections. For many of these so called progressives, the presidency of Barack Obama has been deeply disappointing. To hear some prominent lefties tell it, the New Jesus of the campaign trail has morphed into the New Judas of the Oval Office.

This hyperbole obscures real life: the facts are this president has delivered more sweeping, progressive change in 36 months than the previous two Democratic administrations did in 12 years. "When you look at what will last in history," historian Doris Kearns Goodwin tells Rolling Stone, "Obama has more notches on the presidential belt."

As president, he has rewritten America's social contract to make health care accessible for all citizens. He has brought 100,000 troops home from war and forged a once-unthinkable consensus around the endgame for the Bush administration's $3 trillion blunder in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has secured sweeping financial reforms that elevate the rights of consumers over Wall Street bankers and give regulators powerful new tools to prevent another collapse. And most important of all, he has achieved all of this while moving boldly to ward off another Great Depression and put the country back on a halting path to recovery.

Along the way, Obama delivered record tax cuts to the middle class and slashed nearly $200 billion in corporate welfare — reinvesting that money to make college more accessible and Medicare more solvent. He single-handedly prevented the collapse of the Big Three automakers — saving more than 1 million jobs — and brought Big Tobacco, at last, under the yoke of federal regulation. Even in the face of congressional intransigence on climate change, he has fought to constrain carbon pollution by executive fiat and to invest $200 billion in clean energy — an initiative bigger than John F. Kennedy's moonshot and one that's on track to double America's capacity to generate renewable energy by the end of Obama's first term.

On the social front, he has improved pay parity for women and hate-crime protections for gays and lesbians. He repealed the policy of "dont ask, dont tell."He has brought a measure of sanity to the drug war, reducing the sentencing disparity for crack cocaine while granting states wide latitude to experiment with marijuana laws. And he has installed two young, female justices on the Supreme Court, creating what Brinkley calls "an Obama imprint on the court for generations."

The historic progress that Obama has made is especially evident in eight key areas especially if you remember where the U.S was in 2008 before he took over: In 2008, just two years ago, the country faced a fiscal crisis and a second great depression, we were mired in two wars abroad , we were losing 750000 jobs per month,  Dow was at 6000, there were no investments in infrastructure or green technology, the American auto industry faced bankruptcy.......

And what has Obama managed to do in just three years:

1 | Averting a Depression: his economic team has helped prevent the collapse of the US into the second great depression and the world economy

2 | Sparking Recovery: US economy has shifted from a tailspin to some measure of stabilization and some prospect of job growth next year

3 | Saving Detroit: GM is now the largest and most profitable car company in the world

4 | Reforming Health Care: Universal health insurance (with promised deficit reduction!) is now law of the land providing coverage to over 20 million of our fellow citizens, covering pre existing conditions, allowing students to stay on their parents plans - a goal sought by Democrats for decades.

5 | Cutting Corporate Welfare

6 | Restoring America's Reputation:Equal pay for women has been passed into law.

7 | Protecting Consumers: The race to the top in education spending has created reform in a large number of states from the bottom up,.The size of Peace Corps has been doubled, Pell grants increased substantially and a major fillip given to Volunteerism. A new Consumer protection agency has been created.

8 | Launching a Clean-Energy MoonShot:Major investments have been made in green technology laying the foundation for the future.A stimulus package has helped undergird infrastructure and will probably do more to advance non-carbon energy than anything that might have emerged from Copenhagen.

To those sitting on the fence, I only want to remind them of what Dante said: “The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in times of great moral crises maintain their neutrality” or sit on the fence waiting..

The logic behind Indian rituals

Have you ever wondered what lies behind the various rituals that we perform in our lifetime almost without thinking? Yet we know that there must have been some logic which led to these time honored rituals to have survived for so long in our culture. Here are a few of these and the reason underlying them:

1. Why do we light a lamp? In almost every Indian home a lamp is lit daily before the altar of the Lord. In some houses it is lit at dawn, in some, twice a day – at dawn and dusk – and in a few it is maintained continuously. All auspicious functions commence with the lighting of the lamp, which is often maintained right through the occasion.

Light symbolizes knowledge, and darkness, ignorance. The Lord is the "Knowledge Principle" , who is the source, the enlivener and the illuminator of all knowledge. Hence light is worshiped as the Lord himself. Knowledge removes ignorance just as light removes darkness. Also knowledge is a lasting inner wealth by which all outer achievement can be accomplished. Hence we light the lamp to bow down to knowledge as the greatest of all forms of wealth.

 The traditional oil lamp has a further spiritual significance. The oil or ghee in the lamp symbolizes our negative tendencies and the wick, the ego. When lit by spiritual knowledge, the negative tendencies get slowly exhausted and the ego too finally perishes. The flame of a lamp always burns upwards. Similarly we should acquire such knowledge as to take us towards higher ideals.  

 2. Why do we do namaste ?  Indians greet each other with namaste with the two palms placed together in front of the chest and the head bowed whilst saying the word namaste. This greeting is for all – people younger than us, of our own age, those older than friends, even strangers and us.  

In Sanskrit namah + te = namaste. It means – I bow to you – my greetings, salutations or prostration to you. It has a spiritual significance of negating or reducing one's ego in the presence of another. The real meeting between people is the meeting of their minds. When we greet another, we do so with namaste , which means, "may our minds meet," indicated by the folded palms placed before the chest. The bowing down of the head is a gracious form of extending friendship in love and humility.  

 3. Why do we prostrate before parents and elders?   Indians prostrate before their parents, elders, teachers and noble souls by touching their feet. The elder in turn blesses us by placing his or her hand on or over our heads. Prostration is done  particularly on important occasions like the beginning of a new task, birthdays, festivals etc.

 Touching the feet in prostration is a sign of respect for the age, maturity, nobility and divinity that our elders personify. It symbolizes our recognition of their selfless love for us and the sacrifices they have done for our welfare. It is a way of humbly acknowledging the greatness of another. This tradition reflects the strong family ties, which has been one of India's enduring strengths. The good wishes and blessings of elders are highly valued in India. We prostrate to seek them.  

4. Why do we wear marks (tilak) on the forehead ? The tilak  invokes a feeling of sanctity in the wearer and others. It is recognized as a religious mark. Its form and colour vary according to one's caste, religious sect or the form of the Lord worshipped. In earlier times, the four castes (based on varna or colour) – Brahmana, Kshatriya, Vaishya and Sudra – applied marks differently. The brahmin applied a white chandan mark signifying purity, as his profession was of a priestly or academic nature. The kshatriya applied a red kumkum mark signifying valour as he belonged to warrior races. The vaishya wore a yellow kesar or turmeric mark signifying prosperity as he was a businessman or trader devoted to creation of wealth. The sudra applied a black bhasma, kasturi or charcoal mark signifying service as he supported the work of the other three divisions.  

The tilak cover the spot between the eyebrows, which is the seat of memory and thinking. The tilak is applied with the prayer – "May I remember the Lord. May this pious feeling pervade all my activities. May I be righteous in my deeds." Even when we temporarily forget this prayerful attitude the mark on another reminds us of our resolve. The tilak is thus a blessing of the Lord and a protection against wrong tendencies and forces.  

 5. Why do we not touch papers, books and people with the feet? To Indians, knowledge is sacred and divine. So it must be given respect at all times. Nowadays we separate subjects as sacred and secular. But in ancient India every subject – academic or spiritual – was considered divine and taught by the guru in the gurukula. 

The custom of not stepping on educational tools is a frequent reminder of the high position accorded to knowledge in Indian culture. From an early age, this wisdom fosters in us a deep reverence for books and education. This is also the reason why we worship books, vehicles and instruments once a year on Saraswathi Pooja  dedicated to the Goddess of Learning.  

 6. Why do we offer food to the Lord before eating it?   Indians make an offering of food to the Lord and later partake of it as prasaada – a holy gift from the Lord.

The Lord is omnipotent and omniscient. Man is a part, while the Lord is the totality. All that we do is by His strength and knowledge alone. Hence what we receive in life as a result of our actions is really His alone. We acknowledge this through the act of offering food to Him. This is exemplified by the Hindi words "tera tujko arpan"– I offer what is Yours to You. Thereafter it is akin to His gift to us, graced by His divine touch.

Before we partake of our daily meals we first sprinkle water around the plate as an act of purification. Five morsels of food are placed on the side of the plate acknowledging the debt owed by us to the Divine for their benign grace and protection, our ancestors for giving us their lineage and a family culture, the sages as our religion and culture have been maintained and handed down to us by them, our fellow beings who constitute society without the support of which we could not live as we do and other living beings for serving us selflessly.

7. Why do we fast?   Most devout Indians fast regularly or on special occasions like festivals. On such days they do not eat at all, eat once or make do with fruits or a special diet of simple food.

Fasting in Sanskrit is called upavaasa. Upa means "near" + vaasa means "to stay". Upavaasa therefore means staying near (the Lord), meaning the attainment of close mental proximity with the Lord.  A lot of our time and energy is spent in procuring food items, preparing, cooking, eating and digesting food. Certain food types make our minds dull and agitated. Hence on certain days man decides to save time and conserve his energy by eating either simple, light food or totally abstaining from eating so that his mind becomes alert and pure. The mind, otherwise pre-occupied by the thought of food, now entertains noble thoughts and stays with the Lord. Since it is a self-imposed form of discipline it is usually adhered to with joy.


8. Why do we do pradakshina (circumambulate)? Many Indian rituals require one to circumambulate?


We cannot draw a circle without a center point. The Lord is the center, source and essence of our lives. Recognizing Him as the focal point in our lives, we go about doing our daily chores. This is the significance of pradakshina. Also every point on the circumference of a circle is equidistant from the center. This means that wherever or whoever we may be, we are equally close to the Lord. His grace flows towards us without partiality.  As we do pradakshina, the Lord is always on our right. In India the right side symbolizes auspiciousness. So as we circumambulate the sanctum sanctorum we remind ourselves to lead an auspicious life of righteousness, with the Lord who is the indispensable source of help and strength, as our guide – the "right hand".              

9. Why do we ring the bell in a temple?   Is it to wake up the Lord? But the Lord never sleeps. Is it to let the Lord know we have come? He does not need to be told, as He is all knowing. Is it a form of seeking permission to enter His precinct? It is a homecoming and therefore entry needs no permission. The Lord welcomes us at all times. Then why do we ring the bell? 

 The ringing of the bell produces what is regarded as an auspicious sound. It produces the sound Om, the universal name of the Lord. There should be auspiciousness within and without, to gain the vision of the Lord who is all-auspiciousness. 

10. Why do we consider the lotus as special?   The lotus is the symbol of truth, auspiciousness and beauty (satyam, shivam, sundaram). The Lord is also that nature and therefore, His various aspects are compared to a lotus ( i.e. lotus-eyes, lotus feet, lotus hands, the lotus of the heart etc.).

The lotus blooms with the rising sun and close at night. Similarly, our minds open up and expand with the light of knowledge. The lotus grows even in slushy areas. It remains beautiful and untainted despite its surroundings, reminding us that we too can and should strive to remain pure and beautiful within, under all circumstances. The lotus leaf never gets wet even though it is always in water. It symbolizes the man of wisdom who remains ever joyous, unaffected by the world of sorrow and change.  

11. Why do we worship tulasi?   In Sanskrit, tulanaa naasti athaiva tulasi - that which is incomparable (in its qualities) is the tulasi . For Indians it is one of the most sacred plants. In fact it is known to be the only thing used in worship, which, once used, can be washed and reused in pooja - as it is regarded so self-purifying.

The tulasi played the vital role of demonstrating to the world that even a small object offered with devotion means more to the Lord than all the wealth in the world.


12. Why do we say shaanti thrice?   Shaanti, meaning "peace", is a natural state of being. Disturbances are created either by others or us. For example, peace already exists in a place until someone makes noise. Everyone without exception desires peace in his/her life. 


We chant shaanti thrice to emphasise our intense desire for peace. All obstacles, problems and sorrows originate from three sources: the unseen divine forces over which we have little or no control like earthquakes, floods, volcanic eruptions etc. ; the known factors around us like accidents, human contacts, pollution, crime etc. ; and agitations caused by ourselves. We sincerely pray to the Lord that at least while we undertake special tasks or even in our daily lives, there are no problems or that, problems are minimised from the three sources written about above.
It is chanted aloud the first time, addressing the unseen forces. It is chanted softer the second time, directed to our immediate surroundings and those around, and softest the last time as it is addressed to oneself.              

13. Why do we offer a coconut? In India one of the most common offerings in a temple is a coconut. It is also offered on occasions like weddings, festivals, the use of a new vehicle, bridge, house etc.  

The coconut is broken, symbolising the breaking of the ego. The juice within, representing the inner tendencies is offered along with the white kernel - the mind, to the Lord. A mind thus purified by the touch of the Lord is used as prasaada ( a holy gift). The coconut also symbolises selfless service.

14. Why do we chant Om?  Om is one of the most chanted sound symbols in India. It has a profound effect on the body and mind of the one who chants and also on the surroundings. Most mantras and vedic prayers start with Om.

Om is the universal name of the Lord. It is made up of the letters A (phonetically as in "around"), U (phonetically as in "put") and M (phonetically as in "mum"). The sound emerging from the vocal chords starts from the base of the throat as "A". With the coming together of the lips, "U" is formed and when the lips are closed, all sounds end in "M".


The three letters symbolize the three states (waking, dream and deep sleep), the three deities (Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva), the three Vedas (Rig, Yajur and Sama) the three worlds (Bhuh, Bhuvah, Suvah) etc. The Lord is all these and beyond. 

                                                                                                                                                                 

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Lust, Lies And Empire: The Fishy Tale Behind Eating Fish on Friday

Leave it to National Public Radio to investigate the fishy tale..... "It sounds like the plot of a Dan Brown thriller: A powerful medieval pope makes a secret pact to prop up the fishing industry that ultimately alters global economics. The result: Millions of Catholics around the world end up eating fish on Fridays as part of a religious observance. This "realpolitik" explanation of why Catholics eat fish on Friday has circulated for so long, many people grew up believing it as fact. Some, myself included, even learned it in Catholic school. It's a humdinger of a tale — the kind conspiracy theorists can really sink their teeth into. But is it true? "Many people have searched the Vatican archives on this, but they have found nothing," says Brian Fagan, a professor emeritus of archeology at the University of California, Santa Barbara whose book, Fish On Friday, explores the impact of this practice on Western culture. The real story behind fish on Fridays turns out to be much better. Let's start with a quick lesson in theology: Jesus died on a Friday, and Christians believe he died to redeem a sinful world. People have written of fasting on Friday to commemorate this sacrifice as early as the first century. Technically, it's the flesh of warm-blooded animals that's off limits — an animal "that, in a sense, sacrificed its life for us, if you will," explains Michael Foley, an associate professor at Baylor University and author of Why Do Catholics Eat Fish On Friday? Fish are cold-blooded, so they're fair game. "If you were inclined to eat a reptile on Friday," Foley tells The Salt, "you could do that, too." Alas, Christendom never really developed a hankering for snake. But fish — well, they'd been associated with sacred holidays even in pre-Christian times. And as the number of meatless days piled up on the medieval Christian calendar — not just Fridays but Wednesdays and Saturdays, Advent and Lent, and other holy days — the hunger for fish grew. Indeed, fish fasting days became central to the growth of the global fishing industry – but not because of a pope and his secret pact. At first, says Fagan, Christians' religious appetite was largely met with herring, a fish that was plentiful but dry and tasteless when smoked or salted. And preservation was a must in medieval times: There was no good way for fresh fish to reach the devout masses. Eventually, cod became all the rage — it tasted better when cured and lasted longer, too. The Vikings were ace at preserving cod — they "used dried and salted cod as a form of beef jerky on their ocean passages," Fagan says. And the route the Vikings took at the end of the first millennium — Greenland, Iceland, Newfoundland — matches up with the natural range of the Atlantic cod. It's possible that others may have followed the cod trail to Canada before Columbus sailed the ocean blue. Clues suggest that English fishermen from Bristol may have made the voyage by around 1480 but kept mum on the location lest the competition rush in. By some accounts, both Columbus and John Cabot had heard of these adventures when they set off on their own epic journeys west. "Why do people go over the horizon?" Fagan says. "In the case of the North Atlantic after the Norse ... they went looking for cod" to satiate the demands of the faithful. So that's the empire part of our tale. Funny enough, while the pope story is a fish tale, an official leader of the church did make fish fasting the law for purely practical reasons. For that story — and the lust our headline promised — we turn to a monarch known for his carnal cravings: Henry VIII. By the time Henry ascended the throne in 1509, fish dominated the menu for a good part of the year — as one 15th-century English schoolboy lamented in his notebook: "Though wyll not beleve how werey I am off fysshe, and how moch I desir to that flesch were cum in ageyn." But after Henry became smitten with Anne Boleyn, English fish-eating took a nosedive. The king broke off from the Roman Catholic Church, declared himself the head of the Church of England and divorced his wife so he could marry Anne. Suddenly, eating fish had become political. Fish was seen as a "'popish flesh' that lost favour as fast as Anglicism took root," as Kate Colquhoun recounts in her book Taste: The Story of Britain Through Its Cooking. Fishermen were hurting. So much so that when Henry's young son, Edward VI, took over in 1547, fast days were reinstated by law — "for worldly and civil policy, to spare flesh, and use fish, for the benefit of the commonwealth, where many be fishers, and use the trade of living." In fact, fish fasting remained surprisingly influential in global economics well into the 20th century. As one economic analysis noted, U.S. fish prices plummeted soon after Pope Paul VI loosened fasting rules in the 1960s. The Friday meat ban, by the way, still applies to the 40 days of the Lenten fast, which ends this Saturday. Also in the '60s, Lou Groen, an enterprising McDonald's franchise owner in a largely Catholic part of Cincinnati, found himself struggling to sell burgers on Fridays. His solution? The Filet-O-Fish. While not exactly the miracle of loaves and fishes, Groen's little battered sandwich has fed millions around the world."

Anyone can travel

Here is a wonderful article by Diya on the joys of travelling.

Diya says " We wanted a break from living the life we should to live the life we want. Watching our kids grow up made us realize life goes by fast. Finding out I had multiple sclerosis made us realize that life also take turns we don’t plan. Too many of us take our responsibilities so seriously that we start forgetting the things that really matter such as health, personal connections, or introspection. Every elderly person we meet on the road compliments us, saying that they have all the time now to travel but have lost either the physical ability or the family ties to make it a reality. Their advice and ours is don’t wait until retirement to travel the world. You may not be able to climb the Himalayas or swim in the bluest oceans if you do. And you certainly wont be able to experience these things with your impressionable children. By making the decision to travel, Sandeep and I actually think that we did the most responsible thing we could for our family. We’re navigating the world together and understanding each other on a level we never did at home. Most importantly we have all the time in the world to truly appreciate each other and what makes us a family. We’re not turning our backs on the conventional paths to responsibility, but travel has given us a renewed focus for why it matters."


And she concludes: " Once we hit the road we immediately realized that we traded in our full lives for richer ones. Instead of setting our alarms to get to work, we set it for things like giving alms to 12,000 monks in Chiang Mai. Instead of limited family time, we have the luxury of lazing together. We’re not saying life on the road is perfect or that we never miss certain comforts of home. Sometimes things don’t work. Other times we just can’t get what we want – the only available diaper brand leaks, the coffee is not strong enough, no one speaks English, nothing on the menu is gluten-free – but we adjust as a family. We spend every day now learning about our world with our children. We’re more connected to each other but also realize how connected we are to the rest of mankind and our natural world. We knew this on a superficial level before our journey and live it every day now. We are  learning what it means to be responsible and adaptable global citizens."