Dear Jeyamohan,
There was a long gap in your video uploads, so it is heartening to see them appearing again. I had begun to wonder whether you had stopped making them for some reason. These videos are what I usually listen to during my morning walks.
Many people listen to music while walking, but one cannot remain absorbed in songs for very long. After a while, the mind starts wandering. One ends up listening to random conversations or thinking about subjects such as politics and cinema. Listening to your videos while walking gives me an opportunity—at least for half an hour each day—to engage with deeper ideas and gain a broader philosophical perspective on life and the world.
Your videos do not deal with trivial matters. They do not revolve around daily politics, controversies, or gossip. They have the quality of a writer speaking directly to serious readers. I hope you continue to post videos of this kind.
In one of your videos, you mentioned your concern that the viewership for such content is relatively low. In today’s social media environment, negative content spreads most easily. Negativity attracts attention, and therefore more such content gets produced. Much of the hostility online is also generated through reactions to other popular videos. For example, if someone criticizes something actor Vijay has said, a section of his audience immediately takes notice. People often move from one video to another in this way.
Serious subjects, however, do not have such ready-made entry points. Most people are already familiar with politics and cinema, but they lack a starting point for philosophy, literature, or deeper intellectual discussions. We can only move from the known to the unknown. Only after finding a point of entry can people explore these subjects further. What people discuss today is usually a continuation of what they discussed yesterday.
For this reason, the immediate audience for such videos may be small. Yet every viewer matters. There are people like me who find it difficult to read extensively because of vision-related issues. For us, these videos are immensely valuable. I sincerely hope they continue to be released.
They create the feeling of an ongoing conversation with you. The opportunity for a writer or thinker to speak to us every day is one of the great gifts that this century has made possible. People like me should make the fullest use of it.
Warm regards,
Saravanakumar
