Rohan Monteiro

 I was chatting with my 10 year old on the bus to school and the 10 commandments came up. for context, my daughter age 8 has a quiz at church and I wanted to make sure she was up to date. His question " Why do the commandments not include something like " don't torture people?" Which honestly is a great question that I never thought of when I was a kid. I explained it with  the rationale about how all bronze age religions were a bit bloodthirsty - he's been listening to 'Greeking out' and so he knew specific examples of human sacrifice in Greek mythology as well - Agamemnon's daughter, the offering to the minotaur etc. But it got me thinking - the original draft was actually not too great - it focusses mainly on worship rules and a few core social prohibitions (murder, theft, adultery, lying). They do not explicitly address several ethical issues modern societies consider fundamental—such as slavery, torture, equality of persons, or treatment of outs...

  Lifehack #5 Build Systems, not habits. This advice was given by james Clear in Atomic habits. I love the idea. I used to try building a habit to write 1000 words every day. It didn't work. It annoyed me . And it was very easy to give up. A habit is the thing you do. A system is the setup that makes you do it. Most of us obsess over habits. We say we’re going to wake up early, write every day, exercise more, save money. Those are all behaviors. They sound concrete, but they rely heavily on motivation, and motivation is fickle. Some days you have it. Most days you don’t. Clear’s argument is that focusing on the habit alone is backwards. Instead of trying to force yourself to behave better, you redesign the environment around you so the behavior becomes the path of least resistance. If you want to write, the habit is “write 500 words.” The system is having a fixed time, a clear desk, your document already open, and your phone out of reach. If you want to work out, the habit is exerc...

I am seeing a lot of current competitions that are banning the use of AI completely, and I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, I see what they are trying to do. The rise of AI-generated slop, not to mention the disturbing level of AI use even on forums like Reddit and Quora, in emails and in social media posts, is annoying at best and a serious concern at worst. Scammers are more sophisticated with their phishing. I miss the Nigerian princes. And the American soldier in Iraq who found a ton of gold. Some of those tales were actually pretty good. Fake news, which was always a concern, now requires even lower effort to generate, and the content is really mind-numbingly stupid. In this environment, it makes sense to carve out a space for ourselves and declare this off-limits to AI. To insist that writing is exclusively for humans.A place where writing is supposed to come from sweat, misery, caffeine, and years of craft. Soulless machines have to wait by the door. Noble. Slightly ...

 There are several things that we know we need to do, but somehow we don't get around to doing them.  Multiple reasons - we are lazy, we forget, it doesn't seem important but at some level we know its the right thing to do and we resist it. I see this with my kids when its time to brush their teeth. On some level, I get it - When you are a teenage boy, hygiene isn't  really a top concern- which also probably explains why I was a virgin for so long. The point of this post is for me to list down a few things that work for me - I'm going to call them lifehacks because that's how I think of them. They aren't unique ideas - you probably have heard of them or even implement them occasionally. But these have often helped me the most. Lifehack #1 - Goal Setting I set up 2 or 3 goals for the year in January. These are written down and revisited once a month. My Goals for 2026 Write Book 3 of the Waking Dead series Pitch my non-fiction to a non Indian publisher Write the ...

  I have one fabulous review from Prashant Srivastav (Author of The Spice gate ) that precisely sums up the lead character in a single sentence. Here's the Amazon link for those who are convinced :-)

 I truly believe our role as authors , artists and content creators in this digital age is to push the boundaries of what is and isn't culturally acceptable. To shape narratives and promote new ideas because that's the only way a society can grow. Whether you are a stand up comedian using satire or a debut author with the social media footprint of a gnat, your role is to stand up and question. To be the voice of dissent. Because some things are worth standing up for. I have articulated this in multiple conversations (usually with Internet trolls) but maybe I should write this here as well. A list of unpopular opinions Thoughts on Israel : They have committed genocide Thoughts on Modi : He needs to spend less time orgasming about Nehru, Aurangzeb and temples and actually get shit done. Thoughts on religion :The world would probably be better off without it. Thoughts on the Orange Pumpkin : he is definitely in the Epstein files Thoughts on LGBTQ rights : Support them fully. Too m...