Sashin's notes

In 2011, I first watched this debate between Michael Shermer and Deepak Chopra titled "Does God have a future?" (link it). It was extremely entertaining, and it also happened to be the first I'd ever seen of Sam Harris who I now consider my favourite author.The moderator of this debate was a man named Dan Harris who was a journalist and correspondent for ABC[1] News. He did an excellent job and wasn't afraid to take the audiences point of view when the speakers spoke out of our heads, but I honestly didn't think I'd hear from him ever again.

Come 2014 and I come across this interview on Sam Harris' website. It seemed that some time in those three years Harris and Harris had become good friends[2].

In that time, Dan had become a very enthusiastic practitioner of meditation[3] and had gone as far as to have written a very engaging, honest and entertaining book on the topic - this one.

At that time my mind was focussed like a razor on the book that Sam was in the process of releasing on meditation[4]. I was just starting to get really interested in the practice and wanted to know more. Naturally when I saw Sam describing 10% Happier as required reading for his book, I decided I had to read it.

Flash forward to when the book was finally out, and I search the Amazon store for it. It doesn't seem to be out, either physically or on Kindle.

Being the prolific twitter user, I tweet at him and ask him about the availability of the book. He said it should have already been available in both formats. We find out it's a geographical thing[5]. He then asks me for my address sends me a signed copy of his book completely free.

I believe this gesture made me a 1000% happy at the time. I don't think I'll forget it for as long as I live.

  1. That's the American ABC not the Australian one I've known and loved ↩︎

  2. If memory serves, I believe Dan described Sam as his "brother from another mother". ↩︎

  3. It is extremely fun to be really enthusiastic about meditation, although one is likely to annoy the people around them, I feel like everyone should have go through this phase at some point in their life. ↩︎

  4. This book is Waking Up (link here) and is now my favourite book! ↩︎

  5. I wish books weren't region locked. What is this, the Playstation 2?! ↩︎