THE CHAOS THEORY

“Stories of the Prophets (Peace Be Upon Them)” by Ibn Kathir

This is a fascinating book about the Prophets of Islam (peace be upon them). It tells their stories concisely, using Qur’an citations for added context, then provides the further explanation about the stories, including the theological debates between the scholars and sacred books.

The stories are about the following:

1. Prophet Adam and Eve (Hawwa) 2. Prophet Idris (Enoch) 3. Prophet Nuh (Noah) 4. Prophet Hud 5. Prophet Salih 6. Prophet Ibrahim (Abraham) 7. Prophet Isma’il (Ishmael) 8. Prophet Ishaq (Isaac) 9. Prophet Yaqub (Jacob) 10. Prophet Lot (Lot) 11. Prophet Shuaib 12. Prophet Yusuf (Joseph) 13. Prophet Ayoub (Job) 14. Prophet Dhul-Kifl 15. Prophet Yunus (Jonah) 16. Prophet Moses and Aaron 17. Prophet Hizqeel (Ezekiel) 18. Prophet Elyas (Elisha) 19. Prophet Shammil (Samuel) 20. Prophet Dawud (David) 21. Prophet Sulaiman (Soloman) 22. Prophet Shia (Isaiah) 23. Prophet Aramaya (Jeremiah) 24. Prophet Daniel 25. Prophet Uzair (Ezra) 26. Prophet Zakariyah (Zechariah) 27. Prophet Yahya (John) 28. Prophet Isa (Jesus) and Mary 29. Prophet Muhammad.

Never have I found the stories of these Prophets all compiled neatly into one book. Now, of course that there could be 29 books written about these 29 Prophets, and that’s one of the unfortunate downside of this book. It’s a shame that the stories are [understandably] shortened to make way for all the other stories to fit in the book. But so much so that some of the important details are missing, and the events look speeded up.

Hence, for untrained eyes it would mistakenly appear that most of the stories have the following sequence: 1. Certain group of people are starting to sin and forget about Allah 2. Allah send a Prophet to remind them of the true path 3. They ignore the message 4. Those who follow the Prophet are safe, while the rest are punished. Which is technically true, but not in this grossly simplistic way.

Now think of it like the final season of the Game of Thrones. It’s rushed, it’s an awful ending for such a great build up from season 1 to 7. But apparently, the original plan was to spread out the sequences in season 8 for several more seasons. So that the transformation of Khalesi into a mad queen will be gradual, the war against the White Walkers will be longer, etc. Now this sounds absolutely fantastic.

Likewise, the long-form stories of the Prophets reveal so much more than just this simplistic sin-to-punishment template. They show, among many others, more descriptive details of their awful sins, the many attempts over long period of time to make the sinners realise of their sins, and they also show Allah’s mercy and patience over them. And thus, reading this book requires a bit of a grain of salt.

Nevertheless, this book of short biographies is still an excellent introduction for the stories of the Prophets. It is written in a “goldilocks” pace where it is fast enough not to be boring, but slow enough to let us absorb them in peace. Perfect for a Ramadan reading.

“Magisteria: The Entangled Histories of Science and Religion” by Nicholas Spence

This book is intriguing right from the beginning. It started off with a story about 3 pivotal events in history with regards of what appear to be religion vs. science: the abjuration of Galileo, in Rome 22 June 1633; the Huxley vs. Wilberforce debate, in Oxford 30 June 1860; and the Scopes “monkey” trial in Dayton, Tennessee, 20 July 1925 where this time around it was religion that is in the hot seat being humiliated.

The author, Nicholas Spencer, then remarks that “there are stories behind and within the story of each of these famed battles. The single, coherent narrative we have been sold fragments, on closer inspection, into a mess of variously connected tales. There is no such thing as a -still less the – history of science and religion.”

I’m sorry, what?

As Spencer explains, “the science of Christendom was considerably more sophisticated than most people give it credit for; medieval science is not a contradiction in terms after all. Nicolaus Copernicus never imagined that his theory was a threat to his religion. Senior Church figures were initially positive about heliocentrism. Almost nobody thought the Copernican decentring of the earth demoted or degraded humans, as Freud later claimed. Giordano Bruno was not made a martyr on account of his science. Galileo’s trial was as much about Aristotle, the Protestant threat and his soured friendship with Pope Urban as it was about heliocentrism. Catholic science did not disappear after Galileo.”

Indeed, as Spencer further elaborate, the early scientific societies like the Royal Society were not anti-religion (as portrayed in the brilliant book The Clockwork Universe). In fact, Isaac Newton wrote extensively more about theology than science, and his science did not discredit God from the universe. Moreover, the Enlightenment was actually a period of closest harmony between science and religion, much of the early research of geology was done by clergymen, while even Charles Darwin did not lose faith after discovering evolution and instead until his end of life he denied that evolution was incompatible with theism.

So, naturally, the question would be, what the hell happened between science and religion?

This book is what it says on the tin, a very diligent take on the entangled histories of science AND religion. It provides so many intriguing stories that serve to be the myth-busters of science vs. religion. The book is incredibly well researched, with Spencer often demonstrate his in-depth knowledge on the subject and appears to have read every single books or documents ever produced since the dawn of time.

It is a shame, therefore, that the same strong point of the book can also be the weakness. Because the sheer abundance of characters, stories, quotes, the portrayal of many different eras, and the many debates can be overwhelming at times due to the unclear narrative that dwell too long in the intricate details, making it an unnecessarily difficult book to read.

But it was never intended to be a light reading, especially for a book with a topic as big as science and religion. And if we can digest it, or rely less on the often distracted narrative, the insights from the book can indeed be mind-altering.

The book takes us into an incredible journey through time, with part 1 started from the classical world to 1600 (a period when everyone worshipped God), moving to Islamic Baghdad and Spain, to North Africa and medieval European Judaism, to Christendom, to the spread of Copernicanism through the 16th century, and then to Western Europe where science as we know it now emerged.

Moreover, part 2 of the book takes us through the period when modern science was developed in the 17th and 18th centuries while religion helped to conceive, nurture, and develop it. Part 3 takes us to 19th century where science started to drift apart from religion, where conflicts emerged between science and religion, for better and for worse. And finally part 4, where the story took us from 1900 to present day where all of the authority disputes had been settled, and both science and religion are having the “inconclusive, sometimes beneficial, sometimes fractious, conversations.”

It is so fascinating to see that science and religion now seems to be the absolute nemesis while few hundred years ago they were very much compatible and inseparable. And reading this book is crucial to fully understand what science (and religion, for that matter) is really about.

“Saya Ingin Lihat Semua Ini Berakhir: Esei dan Wawancara Dengan Pramoedya Ananta Toer” by August Hans den Boef and Kees Snoek

This is a condensed book that provides a thorough biography of Pramoedya Ananta Toer in the first half of the book, and an intimate conversation with the great man himself in the other half that dived deeper into his past.

What stands out about this book compared to other Pramoedya biographies is that this book focuses on some of his selected books alongside the story of the man, which gives a more complete picture about his journey as a writer.

The book reveals, for example, the raw chaos in the transition period between Revolution and Independence, Pramoedya’s conversation with Soekarno, addressing his encounter with PKI (and his argument with D. N. Aidit), his role in nation building as a writer, how he sees his books as an individual with its own life, how he never reads his finished works, his favourite writers (John Steinbeck, William Saroyan, Antoine de Saint-Exupery, Lode Zielens, Maxim Gorki, Multatuli), and his hope for his readers.

The book also blatantly shows the criticisms, the imprisonments, the book banning (and destroying), his hunger in exile, and multiple tortures launched against him after Suharto took over power, including the financial difficulties during the many arrests where he’s unable to sell any of his work and had to live from honorarium grant from overseas. All of them give an added weigh to the title of the book, that comes from his expression “I want to see all of this to end.”

You know that phrase by Ernest Hemingway “In order to write about life first you need to live it”? It is only after reading this book that it becomes clear where his brilliant writing comes from, how the struggles contributed to his way of thinking, how the mood of the stories reflected the mood of his own circumstance during the time of writing, how the harsh occurrences in the books were the same occasions that he experienced or witnessed, and how the characters in the stories reflect his personal opinion.

This added a more complete picture towards Pramoedya, which complements the brilliant biographies by his English translator Max Lane (about the making of the Buru Quartet), and a close family account by his brother Koesalah Soebagyo Toer (which provide an angle on his human side from the family perspective).

And if I learn anything from this book it is that ideas are powerful, ideas are feared by the status quo wanting to preserve a propaganda. That’s why Pramoedya was grossly mistreated due to his nature as truth-teller. And as much as I want to see justice served to those who tortured him, Pramoedya eventually got the last laugh when he got his revenge through what he knows best: by writing about them through his fictionalized stories, and let the world knows.

Because bones can break and heal, criminals can even get killed and still amount to nothing, but revealing the truth is much more dangerous for the perpetrators, because it can enlighten the masses and create a spark of change.

“Cerita Dari Jakarta” by Pramoedya Ananta Toer

This is a book of 12 short stories, that shows Jakarta in the turbulent 1940s, from 12 different perspectives. The stories are incredibly diverse with rich characters:

1. The struggles of a white-skin maid during the occupation of the Dutch and then the Japanese.
2. A conversation between 2 hungry wanderers in the city.
3. The tragic back story of a domestic abuse victim running away from home.
4. A neighborly conversation with an enigmatic Arab.
5. An art enthusiast talking about books, movies, and drama plays.
6. An animal doctor who lives and works in the Dutch, Japanese, revolution, and independence eras.
7. A prostitute in the time of Japanese occupation.
8. The story about many different types of maid in the city.
9. A rags-to-riches story about a man called Maman, who lives at the bottom end of society.
10. The deep reason behind a street musician’s performance.
11. The story about a famous martial arts expert, who turned into a heroic soldier, then moved into politics and lose his soul.
12. Life in Jakarta’s main train station, Gambir. Told from the perspectives of the porters, the food stall seller, the police, the local thugs, and more.

These stories show, among others, that it is not the character of a person that will determine how he or she will act. But it is the circumstance in which they found themselves in, that will prompt them to react. And the stories show the extreme interpretation of this, using the most incredible tales of hardship and hope in the capital city.

“Manuscript Found in Accra” by Paulo Coelho

In 1974 a British archaeologist discovered a manuscript in Accra, the capital city of Ghana. Written in Hebrew, Latin, and Arabic; the carbon dating showed that the document is originated from 1307. And it describes a gathering in Jerusalem in the year 1099 – when Jews, Christians, and Muslims live in a relative peace – where on the eve of an attack by the Crusaders, people of all religions get together to hear the wisdom of a mysterious Greek man simply known as the Copt.

As the Crusaders are getting near, people inside the city walls begin to question the wise man about their fears, their struggles, their anxiety before fighting the war, and on the possibility of defeat. The solemn conversation has this feel of calm before the storm, and it also has a message of loyalty and love, beauty and elegance, sex, solitude, self-worthiness, embracing change, feeling uselessness, on community, loyalty, luck, even miracles.

It is a short story filled with so many gems. And it is immediately clear right from the start that this book is not really about Jerusalem, not about the Crusaders attack, not even about the manuscript (and whether or not the real manuscript does exist). But it is a bunch of timeless wisdom about many things in life, fitting not just for the 11th century but also very relevant today for life in the modern world.

“The Infinite Game” by Simon Sinek

According to Simon Sinek, there are 2 types of games: finite games and infinite games.

Finite games, Sinek remarks, “are played by known players. They have fixed rules. And there is an agreed-upon objective that, when reached, ends the game.” Sports is a good example of this, where there are clear rules of the game, exact number of players, and agreed upon time or scores to be met in order to determine a winner.

By contrast, infinite game “are played by known and unknown players. There are no exact or agreed-upon rules. Though there may be conventions or laws that govern how the players conduct themselves, within those broad boundaries, the players can operate however they want. And if they choose to break with convention, they can. The manner in which each player chooses to play is entirely up to them. And they can change how they play the game at any time, for any reason.”

Moreover, “Infinite games have infinite time horizons. And because there is no finish line, no practical end to the game, there is no such thing as “winning” an infinite game. In an infinite game, the primary objective is to keep playing, to perpetuate the game.” Marriage and friendship is a prime example of this. Education is another example, where despite formal education can finish after graduation, self-education like reading this book has no time limit. Business is also an infinite game, and this is where a lot of executives and analysts often get it wrong.

This book is about the contrasting difference between finite mindset and infinite mindset. It shows, among others, the mistake of having a finite approach over an infinite game that brings disaster to the company, like the story of the fall of BlackBerry and Kodak told vividly in the book. It shows how Castle Rock police department can regain the public’s trust by simply changing their finite appraisal system into an infinite one. It shows the infinite solution over a short-term finite mess that turned a company from the verge of bankruptcy into a thriving business, like how American Airline and Ford revived their respective businesses.

The book also tells the tales of acknowledging a Worthy Competitor and embracing them to grow together, like in the case with Apple and IBM. A story about Flexing out of the original venture to continue a Just Cause, like how Walt Disney quit the cartoon division in his company to create Disneyland. It also has an argument that trust is the most important commodity, which is explained through the story of the Navy Seal. A story that shows moral righteousness is not the easiest path to take but the right thing to do, like the story of Patagonia. And the cautionary tales of ethical fading and moral bankruptcy, from the stories of Wells Fargo and EpiPen scandals.

Perhaps my favourite takeaway from this book is Sinek’s argument against the current zeitgeist that the number 1 priority of a company is to enhance the wealth of the shareholder. This is exactly what I was surprised about nearly 2 decades ago when I first heard it at university in a finance class. Surely it doesn’t sound right? I love Sinek’s borderline contempt over Milton Friedman, who came up with this idea and practically created the predatory capitalism environment today.

This thinking, according to Sinek, is a short-term finite mindset in an infinite game of business, which creates a hyper sensitive environment where EPS and stock price movement – among other short-term metrics – become the ultimate measure. He then proceeded to show that companies that first prioritize the wellbeing of its employees, will, in the long run, have a healthy working environment based on trust, which will then produce the best outcome for the business, and eventually generate a better profit for the shareholders. The story of CVS vs. Walgreens is a fascinating take on this, contrasting the two approaches that these health-focused companies took in the matter of selling cigarettes in their repective stores.

There are a lot more technical stuffs about finite vs. infinite mindset in this book, such as resources vs. will, about company culture, on fighting for a Just Cause vs. focusing only on growth, the difference between companies who layoff employees during hardtimes and those who share the burden, and so much more. Sinek even showed how capitalism used to work before Milton Friedman (which, spoiler alert, is how Warren Buffett is still approaching his investment strategy till this day).

And the best part is, Sinek wrote these fascinating insights and stories in a crystal clear way that directly show the contrasting difference between finite mentality and infinite mentality. So much so that once we read the book it immediately becomes clear by just reading the news which companies (or any fields for that matter) that have a leader with finite or infinite mindset, and we can get the general feel of how their venture is doing. Such an important book to read.

“The Longevity Diet: Slow Aging, Fight Disease, Optimize Weight” by Valter Longo, PhD

Two weeks ago I received a phone call bearing a bad news, that my dear aunt just got diagnosed with cancer. And immediately I search for more information on this disease, in the hope that perhaps besides the standard medical treatment from the hospital I can find something else to complement the doctor’s treatment.

During my research, I stumbled upon the idea of 72-hours fasting, which claimed to be able to reset our immune system and fight diseases, even tumor and cancer. And one of the papers that caught my eyes happens to be written by none other than Dr. Valter Longo, the director of the University of Southern California Longevity Institute in Los Angeles, and the Program director on Longevity and Cancer at IFOM (Molecular Oncology FIRC Institute) in Milan, who has more than 30 years of expertise in the field of longevity.

And I thought, hang on, I know this name from somewhere. And true to my Tsundoku nature, a quick glance on my Kindle library shows me that I already purchased this book few years ago during my early hype of healthy living. Funny how few years ago I was trying to read this book but find it hard to start, and so I stopped. But this time around, this is exactly the book that I was looking for and it’s so easy to read. You know what they say, books can appear at the right time and at the right circumstance, just when you need them the most. So, this is it, this is the book to read!

As Dr. Longo remarks, “one of the primary ways to achieve [staying fully functional into our nineties, hundreds, and beyond] is to exploit our body’s innate ability to regenerate itself at the cellular and organ levels.” And he argues that no matter how badly we eat in the past, these built-in mechanisms can be turned back on quite easily using Fasting Mimicking Diet (FMD) within his Longevity Diet formula (more on this later). This is what this book is essentially about.

Dr. Longo dedicates several early chapters to explain his methodology, the progress of his studies, including the personal story on how he switch from one lab to another. In these chapters he also provide his semi-autobiography that explains where his thinking and scientific approach is coming from. Born in Genoa, Italy, he often spend childhood summers in his grandfather’s place in a nearby Italian village of Molochio where he experienced 2 different types of healthy diets. He then moved to Chicago and later Texas for his university days where he adapted to an unhealthy eating habit.

I like the fact that he was very honest about his journey, especially when switching from a music major to science at university, where his imposter syndrome in this new field turned him into a very diligent “paranoid” person who has to check and double check every experiments that he did and the findings that he discovered.

This careful approach towards science is reflected in his methodology on conducting his research, in what he called 5 pillars of Longevity, where he has to screen any hypothesis through 5 layers of filters: 1. Juventology (basic research) 2. Epidemiology (the study of the causes and important risk factors for diseases in defined populations) 3. Clinical studies (testing the hypothesis in a randomized, controlled clinical trials) 4. Centenarian studies (cross check the data with the habits of those who live until 100+ years) 5. The study of complex systems from outside medicine, as a point of reference and useful analogies.

And so, what are his findings that came out from decades of experience and multiple testing that survived the 5 filters? Here are some of the most important ones, quoted verbatim:

1. On aging body: We can try to understand how it ages and attempt to slow that down, or we can identify ways to eliminate aged components and periodically replace them with young ones. In this case, it doesn’t matter how the body ages, whether by oxidation or some other mechanism. The goal changes from protecting the body from damage to improving protection and, more importantly, repair and replacement/regeneration.
2. On his experiments on yeast: 1. If I starved yeast—by removing all the nutrients available to them and giving them only water—they lived twice as long 2. Sugar is one of the nutrients responsible for yeast aging fast and dying early. It activates two genes, RAS and PKA, that are known to accelerate aging, and it inactivates factors and enzymes that protect against oxidation and other types of damage.
3. Aging is the cause of most critical illness: We think of poor nutrition, lack of exercise, and the genes we inherit from our parents as the major risk factors for diseases. But, by monitoring the age at which people are diagnosed with different diseases, we know that aging itself is the main risk factor for cancer, cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s, and many other diseases. According to recent data, the probability that a twenty-year-old woman will develop breast cancer within the next ten years of her life is roughly 1 in 2,000. The risk is 1 in 24 for a seventy-year-old woman—that’s an increase by almost a factor of 100.
4. The lifespan of a mouse is about two and a half years, and tumors begin to appear in mice at the age of one and a half. People live on average more than eighty years, and most tumors begin to appear after age fifty. In relative terms, that is a similar proportion of life. Therefore, we can reduce the risk of cancer and many other diseases by acting on the longevity program, and we now know that we can do this through diet.
5. To attempt to treat a disease without this information [what causes disease at the molecular and cellular level] is like trying to fix a car without knowing how its engine or electrical system works.
6. Based on biogerontology (study of the biology of aging), preventive medicine, and longevity research, we now know that the later years of life, even when life is extended, need not be associated with poor health and disease.
7. Consider this analogy: Would it be possible to build a plane that could fly years longer than current models without its performance suffering? The answer is yes. There are at least two ways to accomplish this: 1. The longer-lived plane would need more fuel and more maintenance for each mile it flies to prevent damage 2. The longer-lived plane would require superior technology to reduce damage while using the same amount of fuel and maintenance as current models. Now let’s apply this to humans: 1. People who live longer would need more energy to perform more maintenance (DNA repair, cellular regeneration, etc.) 2. People who live longer would need to get better at utilizing energy to increase protection against aging and maintaining normal function for longer.
8. I asked her, “Would you fly on an airplane that you had personally designed?” She knew the correct answer to that question was absolutely not. Most planes are designed by teams of world-class engineers working at major aviation companies like Boeing and Airbus, using technology and insights going back to the Wright brothers and even Leonardo da Vinci. Why would you be willing to make key decisions that affect whether you and your loved ones will get cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and many other illnesses based on the silly idea that one should “eat in moderation”? What does that even mean?
9. I’m confident in these claims because of the positive results achieved by thousands of people I have studied—either personally or through basic research, clinical trials, and genetic and epidemiological studies. I’m also confident because most of my recommendations for everyday diets match the diets of the very-long-lived populations that I, and other experts like Craig Wilcox in Okinawa, have studied. These individuals are concentrated in “blue zones,” a term coined by Michel Poulain and Gianni Pes, and made popular by author Dan Buettner, to identify longevity hot spots, where diet and physical activity levels are believed to be a key factor in successful longevity.
10. But sugars are also the most important nutrient for the human body. Sugar is to the body what gasoline is to a car—the central source of energy. So sugar is not the problem. It’s the intake of excessive quantities of sugar, in combination with proteins and certain types of fats, that contributes to disease both directly and indirectly—by activating aging-related genes, creating insulin resistance, and triggering hyperglycemia.
11. When you look at multidisciplinary studies, you realize that the high-protein, high-saturated-fat, and low-carb diet is one of the worst for your health. Populations with record longevity do not eat this way, and theoretical, clinical, and epidemiological studies supporting this kind of diet’s long-term and longevity benefits are very few.
12. The food you eat can determine how you look and function, whether you sleep well at night, whether you will stay thin or gain weight, and whether your body shape is more like a pear or an apple. The type of food you eat determines whether your brain will use glucose or ketone bodies to obtain energy; and if you’re a woman, the type and quantity of food you eat can affect your chances of becoming pregnant.
13. It’s important to eat food you truly enjoy, but it’s also important to eliminate or minimize the consumption of food that will make your life shorter and sicker, and to increase the consumption of nutrients that will make your life longer and healthier.
14. High protein intake, as I explained, causes the activation of the growth hormone receptor, which in turn increases the levels of insulin and insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1), whose altered concentrations are associated with diabetes and cancer, respectively.
15. Proteins and certain amino acids derived from them, including leucine, can activate TOR-S6K, a set of genes that accelerate aging. Another gene that appears to play a key role in aging is PKA, which we have shown in both simple organisms and mice to be activated by sugars. Mice with reduced PKA activity live longer and are protected against age-related disease.
16. By reducing calorie intake, particularly reducing calories from proteins and sugars, you can decrease the activities of the growth hormone receptor, and thus of the TOR-S6K and PKA genes known to accelerate aging.
17. We have known for nearly one hundred years that when mice are fed about 30 to 40 percent fewer calories, they live longer and develop half the tumors and other diseases when compared to the groups of mice receiving a normal-calorie diet.
18. So, on the one hand we know that chronic caloric restriction can have profoundly beneficial effects on risk factors for many diseases. On the other hand, we know that chronic and extreme diets—diets that reduce calories by 20 percent or more and are maintained for long periods or permanently—can negatively affect necessary processes, including wound healing, immune response, and cold-temperature tolerance. Put simply, besides making a person extremely thin, the detrimental effects of chronic calorie restriction appear to minimize its benefits by causing a major increase in other types of diseases and conditions that are less well understood.
19. For people trying to lose weight or those who tend to be heavy, the best nutritional advice is to eat breakfast daily; have lunch or dinner, but not both; and substitute for the missed meal one snack containing fewer than 100 calories and no more than 3 to 5 grams of sugar. (Do not skip breakfast, as this has been associated with increased risk for age-related diseases in multiple studies.) Which meal you skip depends on your lifestyle. The advantage to skipping lunch is more free time and more energy. On the other hand, there is the possible disadvantage of restless sleep from having consumed a large dinner, particularly for those who suffer from acid reflux. The disadvantage to skipping dinner is that it eliminates the most social meal of the day.
20. For most people, the Longevity Diet can be adopted simply by replacing a limited number of items with foods that are just as enjoyable, if not more so. Virtually all diets fail because they are too extreme to maintain in the long run. They also fail because they require major changes to your habits and lifestyle.
21. In a recent study testing many combinations of food components, mice given a low-protein, high-carbohydrate diet lived the longest but also displayed improved health. Mice on a high-protein, low-carbohydrate diet lived the shortest and had the worst health, despite the effect of the diet on weight loss.
22. In our recent study, we showed that simply by lowering protein intake in mice, we can reduce the incidence of melanoma and breast cancer.
23. Recently we also showed that high sugar levels make heart cells and mice more sensitive to damage and death during chemotherapy, confirming our hypothesis that sugar makes cells more vulnerable to damage.
24. The low-carbohydrate diet caused a much higher loss of water and proteins, indicating that the seemingly large effect of very low-carb diets on weight loss actually represents loss of water and muscle in addition to fat.
25. Maintaining a high-vegetable, low-protein diet for the first seventy or eighty years of life, and later switching to a diet richer in proteins but also animal-based foods like eggs, chicken, milk, and certain cheeses, may have slowed down aging and optimized the health of the Molochio centenarians.
26. In either the human body or a car, low fluid level—even of fluids needed for a relatively minor subsystem, such as the radiator—can accelerate aging and cause the whole system to break down. Undernourishment in humans is like low levels of motor oils or other fluids in cars. Another comparison: the car—like the human body—needs both high-quality oils and fuel for its brakes and engine to operate properly. If these products are of low quality or the wrong kind—similar to saturated fats in our diet—the engine and other parts of the car can be damaged and deteriorate faster. Eventually the damage will lead to car problems that must be fixed, just as the aging process in humans leads to diseases.
27. What physical activity is best for healthy longevity? The one you enjoy most, but also the one you can easily incorporate into your daily schedule and the one you can keep doing up to your hundredth birthday and beyond.
28. Overworking your body is not a good idea. If you consider the “complex systems” pillar described earlier and think about a car, why is it that no one wants to buy a five-year-old car with one hundred thousand miles on the odometer? Because despite being relatively new, it has been driven too much. You can replace the tires and repaint the chassis, but you cannot change every belt, hose, and valve, and there’s a high chance that some overworked component will break down. On the other hand, you don’t want to leave your car parked in the garage most of the time, as this will also eventually cause it to break down. The same holds true for the human body. It’s important to exercise, but not to overexercise, because knees, hips, and joints will eventually get damaged—particularly if you continue to exercise when you feel pain.
29. Every muscle of the body needs to be used frequently, because muscles grow and maintain or gain strength only in response to being challenged. Climbing six flights of stairs rapidly can cause leg pain, especially if you haven’t done it in a long time. That pain is evidence of minor injury to your muscles. In the presence of sufficient amounts of proteins, muscle injury leads to the activation of “muscle satellite cells” and, eventually, to muscle growth. Muscles can be slightly injured and rebuilt by doing simple everyday tasks that are challenging.
30. Walk fast one hour per day. Take the stairs instead of escalators and elevators, even if you have to go up many flights. On the weekend, try to walk, even to faraway places, but avoid polluted areas. Do moderate exercise for 2.5 hours a week, some of it in the vigorous range. Do weight training or weight-free exercises to strengthen muscles (combined with 30 grams of protein intake following the weight training).
31. In our cancer studies with mice, we had determined that four major changes in the blood need to occur to show that the mouse had entered a protected state as a result of fasting: (1) lower levels of the growth factor IGF-1; (2) lower levels of glucose; (3) higher levels of ketone bodies, the by-product of fat breakdown; and (4) higher levels of a growth factor inhibitor (IGFBP1). To achieve these results (i.e., to mimic fasting), we fine-tuned a diet low in proteins and sugars and rich in healthy fats. We took advantage of many additional nutritechnologies developed in my lab to ensure proper nourishment and maximum therapeutic effects. We called this regimen the fasting-mimicking diet (FMD).
32. If you starve a cancer patient before injecting chemotherapy, normal cells will respond by putting up a defensive shield. But the cancer cells will ignore the command to kneel and thus remain vulnerable—providing a way to potentially eradicate cancer cells with minimal damage to normal cells.
33. Virtually all the fasting mice were alive and moving around normally after high-dose chemotherapy. Mice on a normal diet, however, were sick and moving very little after chemotherapy. In the following weeks, 65 percent of the mice that did not fast died, whereas nearly all the fasted mice survived.
34. What I proposed, and eventually called “differential stress resistance,” was based on the idea that if you starve an organism, it will go into a highly protected, nongrowth mode—this is “the shield.” But a cancer cell will disobey this order and continue growing even when it is starved, because the oncogene is stuck in an “always on” mode.
35. Diet can also affect the immune system by altering the bacteria population in the gut, which in turn regulates many different immune cells. It’s well established that the Western diet can have inflammatory, negative effects on the types of microbiota occupying the human gut.

Indeed, as you may have guessed, in the latter chapters Dr. Longo dived deeper into the specifics of several different diseases, such as diabetes, cardiovascular, Alzheimer’s, auto-immune, and of course my main reason to read this book: on cancer.

But ultimately, all of his work are presented under the umbrella of longevity. As Dr. Longo explains, “[m]y approach is different from that of almost all other nutrition books, in that my program doesn’t focus on achieving a healthy weight or on any one specific disease independently of the long-term consequences of a treatment. If aging is the central risk factor for all major diseases, it’s much smarter to intervene on aging itself than to try to prevent and treat diseases one by one.”

And in the last chapter (chapter 12: How to stay young), he neatly summarized the most important findings and conclusion of his research into a formula of Longevity Diet:

1. Eat a mostly vegan diet with some fish: Strive for a 100 percent plant- and fish-based diet, but limit fish consumption to two or three meals a week and avoid fish with high mercury content. After age sixty-five to seventy, if you start losing muscle mass, strength, and weight, add more fish and fruit and introduce animal-based foods like eggs, cheese, and yogurt made from sheep’s or goat’s milk.
2. Consume low but sufficient proteins: Consume approximately 0.31 to 0.36 grams of protein per pound of body weight per day. If you weigh 100 pounds, that is about 31 to 36 grams of protein per day, of which 30 grams should be consumed in a single meal to maximize muscle synthesis. If you weigh 200 pounds and have 35 percent body fat, 60 grams of protein per day are instead sufficient, considering that it is the lean body mass that utilizes most of the proteins. Protein intake should be raised slightly after age sixty-five to seventy in individuals who are losing weight and muscle.
3. Minimize bad fats and sugars, and maximize good fats and complex carbs: The diet should be rich in “good” unsaturated fats, including those from salmon, almonds, and walnuts, but very poor in “bad” saturated, hydrogenated, and trans fats. Likewise, the diet should be rich in complex carbohydrates, such as those provided by whole bread and vegetables, but poor in sugars and limited in pasta, rice, white bread, fruit juices, and fruits containing carbohydrates that are easily converted into simple sugars. Finally, the diet should be low in animal proteins but relatively high in vegetable proteins, in order to minimize the former’s negative effects on diseases and maximize the latter’s nourishing effects.
4. Be nourished: The body needs protein, essential fatty acids (omega-3 and omega-6), minerals, vitamins, and sufficient sugar to fight the many wars going on inside and outside cells. To be sure you get enough nutrients, every three days take a multivitamin and a mineral pill, plus an omega-3 fish oil soft gel purchased from a reputable manufacturer.
5. Eat at the table of your ancestors: Consume a variety of foods to take in all the required nutrients, but choose the ones that were common on the table of your parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents, so long as they are included in the Longevity Diet.
6. Eat twice a day plus a snack: Unless your waist circumference and body weight are in the normal or low range, it is best to eat breakfast plus one other meal a day and one low-calorie, low-sugar, nourishing snack. If your weight or muscle mass is too low, then eat three meals a day plus a snack.
7. Time-restricted eating: Restrict your eating to eleven to twelve hours or less per day. For example, if you eat breakfast after 8 a.m., finish dinner before 8 p.m. Shorter periods of feeding (ten hours or less) have been shown to be even more effective in promoting health, but they are much more difficult to comply with and may increase the risk of side effects, such as the formation of gallstones.
8. Periodic prolonged fasting-mimicking diets (FMD): People who are under seventy years of age, not frail or malnourished, and free of certain diseases should undergo five-day periods during which they consume a relatively high-calorie fasting-mimicking diet (see chapter 6). An FMD may also be appropriate for older people, but only if needed and if a medical doctor recommends it.
9. Follow steps 1 through 8 in such a way that you reach and maintain a waist circumference of less than 35.5 inches for men and less than 29.5 inches for women. This is higher than the ideal 33 inches and 27 inches cited earlier, but it is more realistic and should still be very effective in reducing disease risk while avoiding malnourishment.

Understandably, the abundance of information is a bit overwhelming at times. Some ever appear to contradict each other, if presented without the contexts. And while the appendix of the book provides various different recipes for Longevity Diet in a 2-week meal plan, we still need to adapt our environment and even ancestral DNA into the meal plan. Hence Dr. Longo emphasis the importance of consulting to nutritionist, dietician, or other experts before undergoing some of the more high risk plans (such as fasting before chemotherapy).

But overall, the wealth of knowledge that I get from this book are very valuable. And who knows it might even contribute in saving my aunt, or at the very least it equip us with better questions to ask to the doctors. I’m forever grateful, Dr. Longo.

“Gus Gur on Religion, Democracy, and Peace” edited by Hairus Salim HS

KH Abdurrahman Wahid, or more fondly nicknamed Gus Dur, was Indonesia’s 4th president that ruled during the turbulent political era of post-Suharto reformation (1999-2001). He was the grandson of the founder of Nahdlatul Ulama (the largest Islamic organization in the world) and later its leader, who was famous for preaching tolerance.

As an Indonesian president he dismantled the strongholds of 32-years-dictator Suharto, such as the presence of the military in parliament, Suharto’s propaganda ministry, and the power of some Suharto loyalists, among many others (all of which would backfire later). And perhaps most crucially, Gus Dur also opened up the country to all religion including the re-embracing of Chinese religion Confucius and many different interpretation of Islam.

He had this laid back mannerism in him, with lots of wits and jokes, despite famous for being a scholar and an intellectual who loves to read a wide range of books. He also became partially blind at the age of 45, hence the added mysticism towards this enigmatic figure.

This book is the diligent collection of his best of the best thinking, divided into 13 selected essays (out of hundreds) that truly represent Gus Dur’s thinking:

1. The Muslim masses in the life of the nation and of the state.
2. Is there a concept of an Islamic State?
3. Islam and Pancasila: Development of a religious political doctrine in Indonesia.
4. Religion and democracy.
5. Islam, culture, and indigenization.
6. Is Arabization the same with Islamization? (My favourite essay)
7. Religion and the challenge of culture.
8. The universalism of Islam and cosmopolitanism of Islamic civilization.
9. The revival of Islamic civilization: Is it happening?
10. In search of a novel perspective on human rights enforcement.
11. The republic of Earth on heaven: Another side of religious motive within the people’s movement.
12. Justice and reconciliation.
13. Islam, anti-violence, and national transformation.

The subject matters cover what Gus Dur is expert on: religion (as a scholar and leader of an Islamic organization), democracy (as the president of Indonesia in the transition between Suharto’s dictatorship and democracy), and peace (one of the things that made him famous for, peace and tolerance).

On the latter, his opening up to many different interpretations of Islam has unfortunately also brought back hardliners to the country. Although in fairness to him he did write extensively about the danger of the spread of “transnational Islam” (aka Wahhabism) in Indonesia, just before he passed away in 2009. This was years before it got to alarming levels, especially the politicization of Islam in order to gain power, which is one of the core problems that Indonesia is facing today since 2017.

The book has a phenomenal introduction by its editor, Hairus Salim HS, that provides an excellent context on Gus Dur’s background: from his time at pesantren (Islamic boarding school) to studying in Egypt and Baghdad, to making his name in Jakarta’s intellectual scene as an open minded person with a cosmopolite attitude.

As Hairus remarks, “from the background of coming from a pesantren family, a grandfather who found Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) one of the biggest Islamic organization in Indonesia, a father who became one of Indonesia’s founding fathers, an ancestry connected to rulers of olden Java [his family genealogy was connected to King Brawijaya IV, a ruler of Java on the 15th century], and his readings and modern associated, had formed Gus Dur as a complex and paradoxical man.”

Hairus then dived deep into further explanation on Gus Dur’s origins of thoughts, which covers the traditional Islamic thinking vs the reformation that Gus Dur is teaching, complete with the background arguments (such as Arabization vs Indigenization) and the judgement processes within the council of scholars that will appear more in the 13 essays.

Note that Gus Dur is often placed by scholars as one of Indonesia’s neo-modernism scholar, which means an intellectual movement that reprocesses Islam modernism with combination of actual appreciation towards rich classical traditions. Hence, the importance of this context about his thinking cannot be highlighted enough, a fitting introduction before we read the essays.

All in all, this is one of the most important books about the history and intellectual foundation of Indonesia. Reading them not only gives new insights about the country and the great man himself, but it also gives me the nostalgic feeling about the Indonesia that I grew up in, Gus Dur’s Indonesia.

And although he only ruled for less than 2 years (he was impeached by the People’s Consultative Assembly using bogus corruption charges that have since been proven false), his policies are still imprinted in the DNA of the country even today. And there’s no better English-language book that can capture this essence than this one. Such an important read.

“Guerilla Warfare” by Ernesto Che Guevara

Ernesto “Che” Guevara is a polarizing figure.

He’s that iconic face on every rebellious teenager’s t-shirt, the unlikely global merchandise (capitalist) icon, and a romantic figure of an Argentinian doctor turned socialist revolutionary figure fighting against US imperialism. The movie “The Motorcycle Diaries” about his travels in Latin America during his doctor days, which first moved him into activism, is still one of the best movies I’ve ever seen.

But you know what they say, one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. While he was adored by many as a freedom fighter, Che Guevara is labelled by the US as a terrorist, because alongside Fidel Castro et al he fought and won against US-puppet dictator Fulgencio Batista in Cuba. And one of the first things they did after assuming power in 1959 was to seize the properties of a US company, United Fruit Company, that holds thousands of acres of land in the island and re-distribute them to the Cuban people.

This book was published in 1961, and it immediately became the paramilitary go-to handbook for thousands of guerilla fighters in multiple countries around the globe. It is based on Guevara’s personal experience in the successful Cuban Revolution that stretched for 5 years and 5 months.

The book declares right at the beginning that the victory in the Cuban revolution generates 3 lessons: 1. Popular forces can win a war against the state army 2. Guerillas don’t have to wait until all conditions met to start a revolution, instead they can create them 3. In the underdeveloped Americas the basic place to operate a guerilla movement is in the countryside. Guevara also emphasized that the prerequisite principal of the guerilla warfare is that it can only be implemented after all peaceful and legal means have been exhausted and it has the support of its people.

But when an arms uprising is really needed? The book proceeded to discuss the strategy of warfare in much detail, with topics such as the various forms of combat tactics, hit-and-run strikes, sabotage, ambush, destroying supplies, protracted combat at a distance, encircling the enemy, surprise and rapidity of attacks, splitting into smaller groups when needed, the importance of knowing the battlefield, on saving bullets and use them accurately, replenishing weapons and ammunition using their enemy’s as the source (or even from fallen comrades), luring the enemy to fight in a favorable ground, or adapting to fight in an unfavorable ground.

The book also describes the daily life of a guerilla fighter, including indoctrination and uniformed political beliefs, on supplies and transportation, military discipline, bed time discipline, or how to manage the shifts in daily battles. It covers the subject of physical and mental robustness, where guerillas must be able to sleep anywhere and go without food for days and carry all of their supplies on the back: which includes clothes, a knapsack, a hammock with nylon roof, a weapon, a canteen, canned food, and soap. And shoes, shoes are essential to enable the fighters to mobilize to any terrain, and it is advisable to wear them at all times even when sleeping (so they can get going quickly).

Moreover, Guevara then discusses about the organization of a guerilla operation, the choice of formation, the number of units moving together, what kind of weapons being used in different circumstances, medicine and medical problems, the role of the women, eating equipment, note-taking tools, information intelligence, and perhaps most crucially on establishing a de facto civil government in a friendly area. Along the way, he provides several guerilla examples from history, from Mao Zedong to Ho Chi Minh, from a case in Ukraine against Soviet Union to the story in Algeria against the French.

It is a fast read filled with highly actionable information, perfect as a guide for an uprising. No wonder that the book has become one of the main guides for guerilla war.

PS: Not long after the publication of this book Che Guevara disappeared from public view in 1965, only to be found leading a guerilla force in Congo (unsuccessfully) and then in Bolivia when on 9 October 1967 he was eventually caught by CIA-backed Bolivian army. He was immediately assassinated.

“Pramoedya Ananta Toer Dari Dekat Sekali: Catatan Pribadi Koesalah Soebagyo Toer” by Koesalah Soebagyo Toer

This is a very intimate biography of Pramoedya Ananta Toer; told from the perspectives of his closest little brother, Koesalah Soebagyo Toer, the person who Pramoedya tells almost everything to.

The book consist of short chapters that provide many new angles for Pramoedya’s life story, his everyday personality, his hopes and worries, and his rants over many things. It shows, above all things, that Pramoedya is a strong-headed, principled, and eccentric character full of passion and emotions.

Indeed he can be difficult at times, but overall he’s a kind hearted person who likes to have snarky comments and the occasional dad jokes. He’s also stubborn over health issues too, which is endearing and reminds me of my late dad.

The book shows all of this through stories about his family structure, his name changes, his two marriages, the difficulties during his many times in prison, suicide thoughts during exile, money matters, family affairs that make him look like a normal family person, or what he’s like as the oldest brother that took care of his siblings after their parents died.

Moreover, the book also discusses about his difficult relationship with his father, the fact that it took him 10 years to finish elementary school, his youth era when he was in a military fighting against the Dutch and allied forces (which inspired several of his books), or many other random stories like his bizarre experience with black magic.

And of course it discusses his many books, where he got the inspirations from, a glimpse of his research process, his diligent habit of reading historical books and documents, on government censorship towards his work, the stressfulness of publishing books, that one time he was being cheated by his publisher, on being nominated for a Nobel Prize, and many others, including his story with fellow writers like Sandjaja, A. K. Hadi, and Asrul Sani.

It is truly a side of Pramoedya that I haven’t seen before, the human side. And it is a great addition to the puzzle piece of knowledge about Pramoedya the sage and the legendary Indonesian writer.