THE CHAOS THEORY

“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.

“The Economics Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained” by Niall Kishtainy

I’m a sucker for the history of finance and economics. One of my favourite books of all time is “History of Money” by Jack Weatherford, followed closely by “Debt: The First 5000 Years” by David Graeber, while “Ascents of Money” by Niall Ferguson and “Money: The Unauthorized Biography” by Felix Martin are also largely fascinating.

I also love the more recent “The Price of Time: The Real History of Interest” by Edward Chancellor, or his classic “Devil Take The Hindmost” about market speculations. Or the “Reckoning” by Jacob Soll, about the history of accounting. “Treasure Island” by Nicholas Shaxson, about tax havens. “Currency Wars” by James Rickards, about, well, currency wars. Or even “Confessions of a Microfinance Heretic” by Hugh Sinclair, where my review on the book has led me to get into email exchanges with Sinclair himself and talk more about the dodgy microfinance industry.

And don’t get me started with all the financial market books, from the Market Wizard series, Inside the House of Money, Money Masters of Our Time, to any book about (and by) Soros, Buffett, Munger, Graham, Rogers, Dalio, and many other investment gods. And who doesn’t like the crazy tales about the market? Among many others, Liar’s Poker is a must read, followed by F.I.A.S.C.O, Traders Guns & Money, Monkey Business, When Genius Failed, 13 Bankers, and of course The Big Short.

And then we have economic books, from Marxist Economics to books about Keynes, Friedrich List, every book by Ha-Joon Chang, Joseph Stiglitz, to Thomas Piketty’s Capital, even reading Erik S. Reinert’s eye opening book about the true state of global economy. In fact I read about 30+ finance and economic books in one year at one time, while religiously reading The Economist, several blogs such as ZeroHedge and FT Alphaville, and re-watching the long documentary “The Commanding Heights” for at least 5 times. And that is outside of my master’s degree in finance. Indeed, obsessed is an understatement.

Which brings us to this book. The book covers pretty much every important ideas about finance and economics: ancient currencies, to the birth of banking, central banking mechanism, micro finance, economic crisis, bubbles, inflation, electronic money, trade and protectionism, demographic, the gold standard, Planned economy, property rights, statistics and how to measure the economy, the law of diminishing marginal utility, opportunity cost, currency crisis, bailouts, tax cuts, game theory, ponzi scheme, creative destruction, market crashes, bank runs, taxing pollution, on famine, single currency, economic cycle, price discrimination, collective bargaining, climate change, debt relief, exchange traded companies, financial derivatives, on incentives, international trade, the arguments on how to eradicate poverty, the post-Bretton-Woods global system, developmental economics, economics as a predictable science, economics as a force of nature, Keynes vs. Hayek, and many more fascinating debates and ideas, including my favourite subject behaviour economics.

All written in a concise and light manner. Pretty impressive since the subject of economics is often presented in a heavy, lengthy, and boring fashion.

We also get to learn about the many economic theories from thinkers such as Adam Smith, David Ricardo, David Hume, Jean Bodin, Karl Marx, John Maynard Keynes, Irving Fisher, Milton Friedman, Ha-Joon Chang, Alfred Marshall, Theodore Schultz, John Stuart Mill, Kenneth Arrow, Joseph Schumpeter, Paul Krugman, Ben Bernanke, John Nash, Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, Irving Fisher, Hyman Minsky, Jean-Baptiste Say, Jeffrey Sachs, Eugene Fama, Amartya Sen, Joseph Stiglitz, Dani Rodrik, Friedrick von Misses, Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, and many, many more, including lesser known economists (but crucial to the development of the modern world) such as Gerard Debreu, or the power couple Beatrice Webb and Sidney Webb who created the concept of trade union.

As always, DK compiles all of these vast knowledge into a very well-written short chapters filled with concise explanations, which includes the ever helpful timeline, mind map, pictures, and even the context for the arguments. It is really everything we need to know about finance and economics in one book, and that comes from a guy who is obsessed with finance and economics books.

“Larasati” by Pramoedya Ananta Toer

This is an incredible story about Indonesia in the post-independence era (17 August 1945 – 27 December 1949), which often dubbed as Indonesian National Revolution. It was when not long after Indonesia declared independence from Japan, the Dutch forces came back with the backing of the allied forces to re-capture the country that they have occupied for centuries.

The story evolves around Larasati, an actress who pledged her allegiance to the Republic, in the battle between the Republic (the natives) vs. NICA (Netherlands-Indies Cicil Administration). In the story she travelled from Republic-controlled Yogyakarta (where she has made her living) by train to NICA-controlled Jakarta to come visit her mother, only to find herself caught in the middle between the Republic guerilla movement against the NICA.

Along the journey, she met with various different types of characters: The NICA officers, the Dutch jail warden that forced her to witness her fellow natives being tortured, the native traitors that supported the NICA, the local youths in the slums creating independent rebel group, the local grandpa and grandma, the struggling poet, the rich Arab, and more men who will cheat her freedom and even her posessions, and some who will save her.

Indeed, the book has strong characters with rich details, and it also shows the impressive descriptions about how horrifying life was like during those highly turbulent 4 years, that brings the rigid textbook history into life. Too real, in fact, that I can almost feel myself being inside the frightening story and feel the nationalism burning through my veins. That’s what makes Pramoedya a maestro.

“Ernest Hemingway on Writing” Edited by Larry W. Phillips

This is a book that gathers what seemingly a hard task to do: compiling Ernest Hemingway’s many quotations on his writing methods, work habits, discipline, his aims and principles as a writer, and his general outlook on many topics in his books.

A hard task, because, as remarked in the foreword by his publisher and friend, Charles Scribner, Jr., Hemingway has this “almost superstitious reluctance to talk about writing, seeming fearful that saying too much might have an inhibiting effect on his muse.”

Hence, this gem of a book is the testament of the diligence of the author, Larry W. Phillips, who gathered all of the nuggets of wisdom from “his novels and stories, in letters to editors, friends, fellow artists, and critics, in interviews and in commissioned articles on the subject” where Hemingway do discuss about writing, and organized them all into 13 different categories.

You know what they say about wisdom being an organized knowledge? As Phillips elaborates, “comments apparently made at random, at different times, often decades apart, and in different cities or countries, magically began to fit together like pieces of a puzzle.” And the organization of these knowledge makes it easy to learn them all.

So what do the book have in store for the readers? Here’s my re-organizing from Phillips’ organizing:

[On doing the research]: Hemingway is teaching us about deep observation, about understanding everything without judging, about capturing a moment and dissect it to see which emotions fill that moment (and try to rewrite that). He reveals that when writing a story, he almost never know what’s going to happen in the ending. He also addresses being uninvolved politically, having no political alliance, instead understanding them from observing from far away.

[On writing]: He teaches about firstly write down the truth, and then add the emotions around it. On telling everything from the good, the bad, and the ugly to give the reader the complete picture (because if it’s all beautiful, the reader won’t believe it). On how to find inspiration for the title of the book. On creating living people in the novel and not characters. He also emphasize on writing a short enough stories, because long stories (and especially epics) are dull and boring. And write them in straight English, to make it extra clear, because the power of the book is in the story not the vocabulary. And try to avoid slangs, because slang language have expiry period. He also tell about how and when to use profanity (if needed).

[On breaks during writing]: He shows that he likes to stop writing when it is going well and knows what will happen next, to leave it for the next day so that he will never get stuck and can pick up where he left off. Distract yourself during the break, in fact, with exercise, with sex, with reading other books. And to not think about the book during the break, otherwise you will exhaust your mind before you even start writing tomorrow. You will never know how good your writing is until you read it again after taking a break from it.

[On editing]: He says the hard part in writing a novel is to finish it, especially in deciding what to leave out. He talks about hiding all the complications and big knowledge at the background, and instead express them in a simple narrative but with big analogies, meanings, wisdom, etc. He teaches that we can use the “skeleton” of a previously bad writing and fill it with new exciting things. And put it away when you’re finish writing the book, let it cool, and then re-read it again in few weeks/months while editing it.

Chapter 11 in particular is exquisite, where Hemingway talks about other writers, their style, their books, and money matters for living as a writer. Here’s an excerpt of it, when Hemingway said “I’ve been reading all the time down here. Turgenieff to me is the greatest writer there ever was. Didn’t write the greatest books, but was the greatest writer. That’s only for me of course. Did you ever read a short story of his called The Rattle of Wheels? It’s in the 2nd vol. of A Sportsman’s Sketches. War and Peace is the best book I know but imagine what a book it would have been if Turgenieff had written it. Chekov wrote about 6 good stories. But he was an amateur writer. Tolstoi was a prophet. Maupassant was a professional writer, Balzac was a professional writer, Turgenieff was an artist.”

All in all, this book is nothing but an absolute treasure trove. It is so precious to me that I feel like I want to hold it close to me, and want to buy several physical copies just in case this digital version that I’ve read is somehow lost. Definitely will read and re-read it several times in the future.

“Monumen” by NH. Dini

This is an Indonesian-language book, but I’m writing the review in English because its quality deserves the broader attention as a hidden gem of Indonesian literature.

It is a book of 10 short stories, that aims to portray the many different point of views in a diverse society: 1. A crippled boy from a village who goes to the big city to do scrap jobs at the bottom of society 2. A village administrator being set up for an arranged marriage 3. A rags-to-riches success story of an incredible man who becomes too cocky and succumbed into worldly sins and ended up isolating himself in an island 4. An honest government official in his retirement days, being tested by his rule-breaking neighbour 5. A mother whose son got involved in a religious extremist group 6. An Asian immigrant’s life in Paris 7. The local affairs within a housing complex, from a house maid’s point of view 8. An infrastructure project in a village that failed because there’s no education for the locals 9. The struggles of a spoiled child of a wealthy millionaire family 10. A story of a highly educated woman being domestically abused.

One thing that becomes immediately obvious when reading this book is the richness of the narrative in these stories, where in a short enough length the author, Nh. Dini, is able to provide a depth of character, can show complex relationships between the personalities, and able to elaborate them with a wild diversion that makes the plot really unpredictable.

Like story no 10 that begins as merely a domestic violence story, which later expand into a disturbing pedophilia and grooming story, and then a second plot twist that quickly damages the victim’s character from being emphatical to exasperation. Although I really don’t like the morale of this particular story, it is also a testament of Dini’s understanding of psychology and masterful technique as a writer that intentionally pushes her story right to the edge of comfort.

The richness of the story can also be found all the way at the beginning in story number 1, where in just few pages it tells the tale of a person’s hardship since birth, to his toughness on overcoming his disability, his drive to work hard in the city, his daily struggles in the harshest environments, and all the plot twists within this story that highlight the many social injustices. This story provides different kind of lessons, which ultimately show how life looks like at the bottom of the social class.

And of course, story number 8, where the book gets its title. It is a cheeky analogy of what Indonesia is all about: a multi-religion and multi-ethnic effort to build a project together, complete with all the cross-social-class struggles and doubts, which naturally require a sacrifice from the poor; but somehow successfully built, only to be quickly discarded simply due to the lack of planning to educate the intended users. And thus, an abandoned public toilet becomes yet another “monument” of mismanagement and miscommunication that we can unfortunately find all across the country.

I just love how Dini can play around with the reader’s emotions, and shows a masterclass of storytelling within just a limited amount of space. And once you start reading it, it is quite difficult to put down. I had to read it all the way to the end in one sitting, before I can finally stop.

“Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk” by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain

“She liked her lovers half-dead.”

This is a tale about the undesirables, the misunderstood, the trouble makers. They are the misfit people in society that found each other and found their creative outlets through music. Punk music.

The stories are written with an energy matching with punk’s chaotic vibe. It’s honest, uncensored, filthy, sometimes funny, and surprisingly detailed account of some of the most rebellious people on Earth (and their groupies). It’s raw, it’s rude and scandalous, filled with borderline psychotic people with low morals, worthy of the stigma of sex, drugs and rock & roll.

The book itself is the culmination of hundreds of original interviews conducted in the 1990s by the authors, Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain (hence, oral history), while in some cases interviews and text were excepted from other secondary sources such as journals, magazines, anthologies, other interviews, and other books.

And the way the authors stitch them all up in the book is quite unique: the entire book consist of quotes and excerpts from various people in the interviews, but all somehow knitted together into a nice smooth flow of conversation. It is as if these rock legends are all talking in the same room, collectively remembering the many events from the origins of many songs, to the many wild stories from behind the scenes, to a lot of quirks such as how Iggy Pop got his nickname “Pop” or who coined the word “punk” for the music genre.

And whenever there’s a conflict (and there are tons of them in this drugged-up, hyper toxic, environment), the book shows all perspectives directly from the conflicting people. Likewise, whenever there’s an epic or hilarious incident, there will surely be several people reminiscing and laughing about it that will show the complete story from many different vantage points.

In a way, this conversation-style of storytelling makes this book a casual reading perfect for the subject of unassuming punk rock. I just can’t believe that the authors only use 5-10% of the materials they’ve gathered to make this thick book of 725 pages, to ensure that all the information in it are the absolute meat with no bone. And it was such a blast reading it.

Recently I got shadowbanned again by Instagram (the 6th time in 2024, at the very least) for speaking against genocide.

But this time around, I thought instead of ineffectively keep posting on Instagram to only 10% of my normal views, I should collect everything and write it here on WordPress-powered blog (and then post the link to Instagram).

Will it work, and can it bypass the censorship? If you’re reading this right now, chances are it works, as it appears on your stories. Anyway, here are the things that happened during my shadowban:

1. Jordana Cutler, Meta’s policy chief on Israel-Palestine issues (overseeing Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Threads), happens to be the Public Policy director for Israel and the Jewish diaspora. As a result, as BBC investigation confirmed, Meta has restricted Palestinian news outlets since October 2023, not to mention shadowbanning accounts that post about the genocide that would make Israel look bad.
2. BBC Middle East editor Raffi Berg is an openly Netanyahu fan-boy, whose book on Israel was endorsed by Netanyahu himself. Every single news about Israel Palestine on BBC must be approved by him, that’s why the BBC is incredibly biased on supporting Israel’s genocide.
3. Israeli spy Elizabeth Tsurkov revealed that 12 Syrian “rebel groups” were directly funded by Israel. Israel isn’t even hiding it, with defense minister Israel Katz literally claimed “… we toppled the Assad regime in Syria.”
4. Since the [horrible] Assad regime was toppled by the coalition of US-Israel-Turkey, the [even worse] Israel regime bombed Syria 800 times in a week and annexed land 3x the size of Gaza in a coordinated move: US-backed “rebel group” HTS cleared the path, and then Israel march forward without any resistance from HTS (the suppposedly new de facto ruler in Syria).
5. The head of HTS, Abu Mohammed Al-Jolani, was an ISIS and Al-Qaeda fighter. HTS itself is a re-branding from Jabhat al-Nusra (which is Al Qaeda in Syria). The Western media are trying to re-label him by saying he’s “reinvented” himself from Jihadist to revolutionary leader, in order to hide the tracks. But the truth cannot be clearer than this: The US-and-Israeli-backed-group consist of al-Nusra-ISIS fighters. That should give you a massive clue about whose attack dog al-Nusra-ISIS really is. Al-Jolani also appoints former al-Nusra-ISIS people in Syrian government positions, including Anas Khattab as head of intelligence.
6. After Assad regime was toppled, the gas pipeline project from Qatar to Turkey (via Syria) will likely to resume. Never trust Erdogan whenever he said any anti-Israel PR stunt. In fact, his son Burak Erdogan was revealed to have traded with Israel during the ongoing genocide.
7. French journalist Marine Vlahovic was found dead, whilst making a documentary about Gaza. This is of course on top of the 5 journalist killed last week in Gaza, or the total of 201 journalists killed. If the truth is not your enemy, why kill the truth messengers?
8. Israel went from denying that it attacked a hospital (remember the arguments on 17 October 2023 over the attack on Al-Ahli hospital?) to destroying the entire Gaza healthcare system in a year without consequences and setting the last hospital standing – Kamal Adwan Hospital – on fire. And Zionist supporters went from gaslighting to total silence over this issue.
9. Zionist supporters are now starting to try to distance themselves from the genocide by saying “this is not my Zionism.” Firstly, this is still gaslighting because they can see what’s happening (and don’t want to be associated with it), but yet still support the perpetrator and refuse to acknowledge that it is happening. Secondly, this is like saying “this is not my colonialism”, which implies that there is a good version of colonialism project. Colonialism is colonialism, it involve stealing the native’s land, subject them to brutal control (and/or extermination), and robbing everything in the land. And if you try to justify it by using religion, it is called religious extremism. Thirdly, this is an attempt to whitewashing their crimes, at par with saying the “conflict” is “complicated” (it’s really not, Zionism is just another label for settler-colonialism, planned since 1917 and executed since 1948), or try to portray this as a “war” implying that both sides have equal power (while the fact is one side is a guerilla group, and the other side receive billions of dollars of funding, weapons supplies from US and EU, media control, protected by veto power and no enforcement over the ICJ and ICC war crime sentences).
10. Right now Israel is still destroying and torturing Gaza with impunity, repeatedly violating the ceasefire in Lebanon, and occupying Syria at the same time. But but but, what about Khamas? At this Greater Israel expansion period, and after all the mounting evidence of what Israel have done right in front of our eyes for more than a year, if you still think that this is about Hamas and what happened on 7 October 2023, you’re fucking hopeless.

Censor this, Jordana Cutler.