Exploring Plato's Cave and the crucial act of questioning the world around us.
The following post is an exploration of a passage from my book, "Sonder: An Existential Manifesto," and honestly, it’s one of those concepts that keeps popping back into my head, no matter what I’m doing.
Why You’ll Never Be Happy — and Why That’s Exactly the Point.
The ideas explored in this essay are drawn from a chapter I originally wrote for my book, Sonder: An Existential Manifesto (2024). The book dives deep into the hidden patterns of our modern condition — tracing how history, identity, and meaning interlace in our lives. What follows is a distilled meditation from that chapter, adapted for Substack. If you find resonance here, you might enjoy the broader philosophical arc the book attempts to draw.
https://vipuleshthiyagarajah.com/novel
Vipulesh Thiyagarajah
Author of "Sonder: An Existential Manifesto"
Triple Triumph: Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds' Fairytale Rise from Non-League to the Championship
Inside the Veblen good that every luxury house envies.
Why Brute Force Beats Human Insight in AI—and What That Means for Geopolitics, Energy, and Civilization
To mark the first anniversary of my debut non-fiction book on meaning and the inner workings of our lives, I’m sharing one of my favorite excerpts on mimetic theory and the anatomy of desire.
https://vipuleshthiyagarajah.com/novel
Where Tennis Becomes Theatre and Tradition Meets Quiet Luxury.
The ideas explored in this essay are drawn from a chapter I originally wrote for my book, Sonder: An Existential Manifesto (2024). The script was generated from a substack article I wrote: https://vipuleshthiyagarajah.substack.com/p/clay-courts-and-champagne-a-weekend
Thoughtless Thinking, Cognitive Offloading, and the Quiet Decline of Deep Work.
The ideas explored in this essay are drawn from a chapter I originally wrote for my book, Sonder: An Existential Manifesto (2024). The script was generated from a substack article I wrote: https://vipuleshthiyagarajah.substack.com/p/we-are-nothing-and-thats-not-nothing
What a rodent utopia, cosmic odds, and existential dread reveal about the human condition.
The ideas explored in this essay are drawn from a chapter I originally wrote for my book, Sonder: An Existential Manifesto (2024). The script was generated from a substack article I wrote: https://vipuleshthiyagarajah.substack.com/p/we-are-nothing-and-thats-not-nothing
From immortality to artificial intelligence, we are advancing faster than we can adapt—exploring the human cost of progress in an ever-changing world.
The Death of Superpowers: Lessons from 500 Years of Hegemony.
The ideas explored in this essay are drawn from a chapter I originally wrote for my book, Sonder: An Existential Manifesto (2024). The blog post is on my Substack: https://vipuleshthiyagarajah.substack.com/p/the-pursuit-of-happiness-and-the
- Vipulesh Thiyagarajah
Author of "Sonder: An Existential Manifesto"
How Personality, Proximity, and Psychology Shape the People We Become.
The ideas explored in this essay are drawn from a chapter I originally wrote for my book, Sonder: An Existential Manifesto (2024).
Originally written on my Substack Blog.
- Vipulesh Thiyagarajah
Author of "Sonder: An Existential Manifesto"
An Existential Reading of History, Memory, and the Generational Mandate.
The ideas explored in this essay are drawn from a chapter I originally wrote for my book, Sonder: An Existential Manifesto (2024).
If this resonated, I write weekly on history, economics, and human potential. Subscribe to my substack: https://vipuleshthiyagarajah.substack.com/p/the-crisis-generation-why-gen-z-stands
Why Consistency Outperforms Market Timing in Investing.
Viren Beruwalage and I discuss the past, present, and future of the the modern world.
Wimarshana Wijesuriya and I discuss the philosophy of happiness, the mental health crisis, and the meaning of life.
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Books by Wimarshana: Colombo: A Critical Introspection, Post Politica, and Citizens’ Guide to the Third World.
