Hello everyone, my name is Vishnudas, I have secured all India rank 16 in this year's Indian Forest Service examination. Hello everyone, my name is Subjit KV and I have secured all India rank 60 in this year's Indian Forest Service examination. And we are here to share our experience in preparing this exam and they are outplayed by Shankar IAS Academy in facilitating us in this journey. And I would like to thank the entire Shankar IAS Academy team in helping us in this process. Especially Karthikeyan sir and Satipal sir came from Chennai to Trivandrum in helping us. I would also take this opportunity to thank the entire Shankar IAS Academy. Especially the sessions by Pramod Krishna sir was of great use. There has been a very interesting session which covered almost all the topics which were possible for Indian Forest Service examination. Also the support provided by Dena ma'am and the entire Shankar IAS Academy was of great significance in my success story. And one more thing I would like to share here is the experience that we had in the MOOC interview provided by Shankar IAS Academy. And most of the questions that I was asked here repeated in the actual UPC interview. Especially questions from tribal development, forest management, afforestation, role of PPP. All these questions were asked in UPC interview. So I felt really happy after giving my UPC interview about the interview I had in Shankar IAS. So once again I would like to thank the entire team in helping us all of us in this process. The MOOC interview panel of Shankar IAS Academy of great quality. All the members have of great significant people and they have asked all important questions which were possible for the interview in real-life interview. So it has helped me a lot in preparing for the interview. So once again thank you the entire team of Shankar Academy. Thank you so much. Thank you Shankar IAS Academy.


For the last two Mondays, we have discussed two people who vanished in the Bennington Triangle. As you know, the Bennington Triangle is part of a national forest, and unexplained disappearances are actually quite common in national forests. It seems sometimes when we're in these national parks and forests, it isn't the wild animals that we have to worry about. But maybe something a little bit more spiritual. Maybe things like portals. But before we go any further, you know what to do. Please hit that subscribe button and give us a like. A very, very, very special thank you to all of our patrons and our producers here on Esoteric Atlanta. Without you, we could not do what we do. If you would like to join our Patreon community, there is a link down in the description box below. And if you are a producer of Esoteric Atlanta and you have not sent me your businesses for me to promote on my channel, then please go ahead and send your business information to the email address listed in the description box below. Welcome to Esoteric Atlanta. My name is Bryce. And today on Mystery Monday, we are going to be talking about the strange disappearance of James Tedford. They said in the introduction, this is the third person that we are going to be discussing who went missing in the Bennington Triangle. Now in the first two episodes, I did discuss some of the other phenomenon that has happened in this region. If you missed those episodes, there are links down in the description box below. Because I have discussed the phenomenon that has happened in the Bennington Triangle in the past two episodes, I'm not going to repeat it today. Now with James Tedford's disappearance, in my opinion, this is the strangest. With both Paula Jean Weldon and Mitty Rivers, yes, those two were also very strange disappearances, especially since nothing was found of them, well, except for one little cartridge that belonged to many rivers. But despite that, there can also be other explanations. They could have been abducted. There could have been something that happened in nature that removed their bodies for some strange reason. That type of phenomenon happens and it's not necessarily something that is crazy or off-world or super sinister. It just is what it is in nature. But with James Tedford, his case to me is the absolute most peculiar. And to me, it's the one case out of all the cases that definitely scream that this Bennington Triangle possibly holds a portal. Now unfortunately, there isn't a whole lot of information on James Tedford. All I have is the basic story. But there's one part of his story dealing with his wife that's also very, very peculiar. So let's get started with James Tedford. In December of 1941, the United States entered into the Second World War. James Tedford was a 56-year-old war veteran who decided to re-enlist into the army to serve his country in the Second World War for the Allied Forces. Now, James' wife, a woman named Pearl Tedford, was a good bit younger than James. She was 28 years old. Now, the age difference doesn't really seem to matter in the story of both of their disappearances. But with everything I read about this case, it was always brought up. But for all intent and purposes, before James Tedford left to go serve in the Second World War, he had a very, very happy marriage with his wife Pearl. The Tedfords lived in a very small town in Vermont. And after the end of World War II, James returned back to his wife Pearl. And this is when his whole world and her world got turned upside down. One day, James returned home for the day and he found his wife was nowhere to be seen. The house was orderly. In fact, there was a meal, a warm meal left for him for his dinner. Nothing seemed to be quite peculiar in the house. No suitcases were missing. All of her clothes were still hanging in the closet. So James just assumed that his wife Pearl was out running errands in would be back shortly. But over time, Pearl never returned. James immediately contacted the neighbors to see if they had seen his wife. And the only person who had seen his wife that day was a neighbor who saw his wife heading to the local store. After she was done shopping at the local grocery store, she was never seen again. She vanished.  After all, this was a 28 year old woman. But as I said, they had a happy marriage. And if she was going to leave James, wouldn't she have packed a suitcase, brought her belongings with her, made sure she had enough money to get where she was going? Well, she had done none of that. And why would she be heading to the grocery store to go shopping for her house with James if she wasn't planning on coming back? And if Pearl was planning on leaving James, I don't think she would have been in quite a chipper mood or been acting normal to their neighbors. So this vanishing again, quite peculiar. But as I said, there's not much information to go on. The year at this point was 1946. So of course, many, many, many years have passed. And it's not like we had forensic evidence or forensic scientists at this time to do even a thorough search of the house or the property to see what they could find. Laughter Pearl vanished. James went into a very strange depression. Now I say strange depression. And I probably shouldn't say strange depression because depression does affect people differently. For James, he became housebound. He would not leave his home. And for his friends and family that would go check on James, he would be seen just sitting there staring at the wall. Now in 1947, a year after Pearl's disappearance, James decided that he was going to move into a retirement home. This was the soldier's retirement home in Bennington, Vermont. Now, while James was at the retirement home, he continued to act like he did when he was at home after his wife had vanished. He continued to stay aloof and just kind of sit and stare at the wall, almost like his mind was slowly leaving him. Well, James still had family and St. Albans, Vermont. And so from time to time, James would take the eight hour bus ride to his family and St. Albans to visit them. Now the bus would take route seven. This particular route goes directly through what is known as the Bennington Triangle. In December of 1949, three years after the disappearance of Paula Jean Weldon, James decided to go visit his family in St. Albans. He made it to St. Albans, had the visit, but on the way back, he vanished. And when I say he vanished, he literally vanished into thin air. According to the records, the bus did not make any stops between St. Albans and Bennington Vermont. There were also 15 other passengers on the bus who witnessed this phenomenon of this elderly man vanishing. When the bus pulled up in Bennington, all that was left was James's luggage, his cash, his wallet, and his itinerary, just sitting on the seat where he had been. There was no racket. For example, if he had tried to open the window and jump out the window, the 15 other people on the bus would have heard the commotion and probably pulled him back in. But none of that happened. The bus ride for all attendant purposes was very cool, calm, and collected. Nothing seemed to be out of order except for the fact that James just vanished. And like his wife, James himself was never seen again. Now, as I said, this case out of all of the five cases that we're going to be covering in the Bennington Triangle is the most peculiar. Again, with many rivers or apology in Weldon, they were by themselves when they vanished. But for James Tedford, there were 15 people around him in a moving vehicle, a moving vehicle that did not stop. And in my opinion, out of all the stories of Bennington Triangle, this one is the one that carries the greatest proof that there is some sort of portal there. Now, once we're finished going over the Bennington Triangle, I am planning on asking Janine just to do a full on episode over all of these cases and perhaps touching on some other cases in other national parks. Because I think most of you probably agree with me that there's something very fishy happening here. All right, guys, happy, happy Monday. Please leave me your thoughts and your opinions down in the comment section below. I hope that you're having a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful week. It's getting exciting out there. We are at the precipice of change.  Keep shining. Keep showing that love, that mercy, and that grace of God within your beautiful being. Thank you to Josh McKay for doing our music. If you would like to purchase the opening song, there is a link down in the description box below.  I always love hearing what you guys have to say because multiple heads are better than one. All right, guys, I'll talk to you soon. Bye.


After being announced as a top 10 city in the small business revolution, the Brainerd Lakes area had the opportunity to show off the city to the team from the Deluxe Corporation. Clayton Castle was at the rally and has more on what winning the competition would mean for Brainerd. Four of the crowd made an impression. That was unbelievable. I have to say we have done a lot of these receptions and they're all really special for different reasons but we have never had a scream like that. It was almost like a surprise party though we knew the party was happening. The city of Brainerd is in the top 10 cities to be selected by the Deluxe Corporation and the web shows small business revolution for a grand prize of $500,000 for downtown revitalization. On Wednesday night the Brainerd business community held a rally to welcome the Deluxe team and show star Amanda Brinkman. Our community came out, our business community came out and they were cheering here like the Vikings won the Super Bowl and you know that's what we were after to make a dynamic impression. Building up small businesses is at the heart of the small business revolution as those small businesses are extremely important in small towns like Brainerd. We wanted to do something to really honor small businesses and turn the spotlight onto the importance of small businesses and nowhere is that more true than inner small towns and so we started the small business revolution to really create a movement. For Brainerd the businesses in downtown are important to the vitality of the city. The small businesses that four blocks in the center of the city is the heart of the city. Without that four blocks there's a huge tax incentive to keep that four blocks per square foot that's the most valuable property in the city. As for the showing that Brainerd put on Wednesday night chamber president Matt Killian believes Deluxe will have a tough decision come the time to pick the top five. You know I think we really showcase the the energy and the passion of the Brainerd business community and the mood in this place was absolutely electric and so they're going to have a tough decision to go from 10 to 5 but Brainerd made a great impression tonight we're going to continue that tomorrow. The top five will be announced sometime in mid-February followed by an online fan vote to determine the winner. Reporting in Brainerd Clayton Castle Lakeland News. Breakman and the rest of the Deluxe team visited the businesses of downtown Brainerd earlier today as part of their itinerary in Brainerd. If you enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News please consider making a tax deductible contribution to Lakeland PBS.


It's time for another chit chat, chit chat. I'm a no-till girl. So y'all, it is mid-October, let me put my purple lipstick on. Mid-October, I surprised you, what is it? Girl, I was just interrupted by you-know-who-chall. Y'all, I really do miss my me time. I'm sorry, but baby, I was by myself. Now I don't understand, I had JB pretty late. I'm 40 years old with a seven-year-old child. So I'm used to, and then my husband has a schedule to where he's never home. So I'm one of those people that's used to be about themselves. So I don't need you up and, I'm not used to that still. It's been nearly eight years, and I'm just not used to this still. I know some of you are like, girl, you need to get used to it by now. You need to get over it, I do. But you know what's so funny? We'll get to this chit chat, y'all. I was watching Discovering Natural, one of her videos, and how she was stating how there was a couple of things that she wished she would have done. I don't know exactly what verb she used, but basically she wished everything she would have done before she either got married or have children. I think one of those things is traveling by herself. I will say, I am so glad I did so many things before I officially got married and before I had children, and that includes traveling by myself. I went to restaurants by myself.  I have no regrets. I went to clubs, I hung out at clubs.  Why am I talking about that? Anyway, so y'all, y'all know how we do this. We talk about what's in these YouTube streets. Well, we talk about what's going on in my personal life, what's in these YouTube streets, and what I've been watching for a change. Girl, I've been watching a lot of TV, so we're gonna get into that. So y'all, personal life, going girl. Christine decided to be on PTO this week, y'all. So, thank the Lord. I've been praying, praying, praying, y'all. I've been really, I've been really specific what I'm praying about now. And it has been a quiet knock on wood, knock on fat. It's been a relatively quiet week for me to be by myself and homeschooling and stuff going in a household. So thank God for that. Y'all, I'm in a couple of Facebook groups now that are more catered towards homeschooling. And let me tell you, we still have our ups and downs when it comes to dealing with JB at home, but I am forever grateful that we don't have some of these people issues. Cause baby, some of these folks, the issues that they be posting, I'm like, I'm good, we're good. Cause I was going to write a post asking for advice and I'm like, oh no, y'all got some serious cause they're dealing with children that have sensory issues, you know, ADD, not to say, not to downplay, you know, us dealing with JB, but we can deal. The stuff that they're dealing with is like, I'm like, wow, well, and multiple children. You see what I'm saying? So I'm like, yeah, I just got one. So we good. Okay, we good. We're going to pray. And yeah, it's been a good two weeks. We've had our moments, but I can honestly say these two weeks have been good. Now my husband, we're getting on my nerves, girl. He off this week too. Girl, the first thing we did is go to Trader Joe's.  And the man in front of, I've been lying, right?  And the man in front of me doesn't know that Alex is my husband. He turns around and he says, looks like somebody's going to have a party. And I said, sure does. Dang. I was so funny. So anyway, yeah, we just drink wine.  So anyway, so home life is busy, going good, work is good, you know, busy, busy, busy. We are implementing a new system, which has been going to be busy. By the time I load up this chit chat, I would have had a vlog or a vlog with the person that is hell, I'll wash it. It was rough, y'all. I'm going to be honest. It was very rough when we first started homeschooling and I anticipate that we will have some ups and downs. But overall, I am healthy. Can you see the joy in my skin? Maybe I haven't even been following my regimen, but my skin been looking good. I have no makeup on, honey. No, oh, I gotta have some lipstick on, so. I do need to schedule a me time. I do need to schedule some time to myself. I have been getting up early. Girl, I forgot my book, y'all. I forgot my book. I was going to read y'all a quote. Oh, quotes. Well, hell, let me just share with y'all one of my favorite quotes, okay? So it's very short. Even in the darkness, you can still see the stars, okay? That's one of my favorite quotes, all right? So y'all, what else is going on personal? We're going to be getting carpet soon. I picked it out. It's cute, whatever. And it's what it is. This room's going to be clear that I saw my husband in here looking around scratching the stomach.  It's like, look, this is what he was looking at. Look, can we zoom in? This, that's what he was looking at, girl. All that over there. Yes, it's a lot of stuff. I will take care of it. Mama's going to get it together because we had our house painted earlier this year. And was it this year? I don't remember, girl, but I had to move all this stuff out of here, too. Yeah, so we're going to get it together. It is what it is. Y'all, I've been doing so good with my nails. I mean, I've been getting compliments on my nails and these are my fall nails. Isn't this cute, girl? Isn't this cute? So we got an orange. We got a mustard. We got a red. We got a gold. We got a golden red. So it's kind of messy. So don't get too close, girl. But this is the Beatles, this. This is the Beatles, y'all.  Yeah, mama's been getting compliments on the nails when I'm all, and I'll be the first one to say. They're like, oh, your nails are cute. I'm like, thank you, girl. I did it myself, girl, the cute hunt. I know I'm silly. So yeah, y'all, nails, carpet, homeschool. It is what it is. And believe me, y'all, I won't be telling y'all about homeschooling with every chitchat because I know some of y'all don't care about that.  So, you too. Have y'all been noticing the, why am I whispering? Have y'all been noticing the exodus of natural hair YouTubers? Yes, I've jotted down a couple of names, but I've been noticing a lot more YouTubers who are, and the one thing they say when they're announcing how the content on their channel is changing is that I'm more than just my hair, which is absolutely true.  It really is. So a couple of people I've noticed who have been doing more than just hair videos or buzz speed, she's been really venturing out and doing, she did a clean with me video. I think she cleaned her kitchen. Girl, I looked at that video twice. I was inspired to not do a damn thing. Like, I was like, dang, she's cleaning the cabinets. I said, I think I was eating too.  I'm like, wow, she's really cleaning.   It doesn't really motivate me. I just like watching people clean, I guess. So, yeah, BuzzFeed is kind of venturing out, adding different type of content on her channel. I know Lee announced, it would have been a couple of weeks by now, I know Lee announced that she's venturing away from natural hair, Nappy had a horrible, we already knew, but she officially announced like a couple of weeks ago that she's done. Kamaya Yvonne, and so yeah, you guys, and of course me. Now I'm not gonna say that the biggest thing that's gonna be happening on my channel is that I won't be doing product reviews after this year, but girl, yeah, I'm still gonna be doing hair videos. It just won't be as much. Does that make sense, y'all? So maybe my updated regimen, updated wash day, because I do change my products, you know, depending on what's going on with my hair, or you know how I'm gonna be styling my hair, or maybe I'll go back and reuse a product I haven't used in a while. Speaking of y'all, do any of y'all remember bio infusion products that was sold exclusively at Walgreens? Those products were the shits back then. I remember using the Colt curl pomade and they had a hair serum. It reminded me very similar of Jane Carter products, but cheaper. Believe it or not, they weren't cheaper. They weren't cheaper. I shouldn't say that. But I found them on Amazon. Baby, I swiftly said five products left. I was like, by now. I went ahead and I will be reintroducing it on my channel because I absolutely loved that curl pomade and I was heartbroken when Walgreens stopped selling B-line itself. So anyway, y'all, just got off on a tangent. So yep, I noticed an exodus of natural hair YouTubers and I've overall, the natural hair community, we all know this, has definitely changed a lot on YouTube and I don't really see too many new people coming in anymore. Have y'all seen any new people coming in? For a while there, I felt like going natural was a trend. Claiming for type was a trend.  No, it's mostly 4A. Like, why are you claim, this is one of the reasons why I just say for type at this point.  Now, there's someone who is, she's a well known. God, who was it? Actually, I know who it is. I'm not gonna say who it is. And she's a smaller YouTuber but she has high views and she does, well, I don't think she does anymore but she was claiming 4C and she's not 4C. She's 4A4B but hey, this is one of the reasons why I try to stay away from typing hair because you never know, okay? So, moving on from YouTube, y'all. Actually, let me pause, pause. One blogger who I absolutely love and I binge watch her videos, I cannot wait when she posts, is I am Sharika. She is a mukbanger. She does mukbangs with her husband sometimes and I love that she does a story time.  I know some of y'all watch her shows too. So, her name is I am Sharika and I will be posting the links to her channel below along with her mukbang if you're into that. Now, she does a lot of seafood and all that. I'm allergic to all that girl but I still be watching if you're looking good as hell. She's based out of Florida. She's an older YouTuber but she has a young, modern swag. I don't know how old she is but she does have a child in their 20s and then she has a child, I believe he's like 12, 13 years old. He may not even be that old but I love her style. She has a very grown up style. I also appreciate that she, girl, I never see her slipping in her vlog. She has her face, I'm done. And it may be like a neutral beat but it's so cute. She's always so well put together. She's a professional and I just really like her content. I really do. Right now she's, well, she may be doing it for a while. She's really big into decorating. So y'all check her out. I really do like her. All right, girl. So what I've been watching on TV. Girl, everything. The other day I caught the third installment of the bad boys movie. What was it called, y'all?  It just wasn't as good as the other two. And I really did not expect it to be but it was one of those type of movies to where I stopped watching it and picked it up later on because I just lost interest, y'all. But I saw it on, did I watch it on HBO? I think I saw it on HBO. It was okay, okay. Will Smith still looks good to me. Girl, he does. He looks good. He may not be able to run the same but he still is a very attractive man in my opinion. So yeah, y'all, guess what I have been watching? The girl, I don't know why I started watching this again. The Parker's. So the Parker's and girlfriends are back on Netflix. I love me some Candace Vaughn. Don't walk away from me. You need to change. I'm purposely sounding bad. I can't sing but I'm from.  What, how does it go? Have I ever, ever, ever left you? Would you care for me, wifey? Did you hurt about me? I don't know the words. I love that song, y'all. Now, I'm not making fun of her. I love, I actually like that song. I know I like that song. I love that video. I think the video is hilarious. Candace has his song about her being a wife and child. So I, from what I understand, her voice is getting better. Now, does she have some type of growth or something on her throat and it caused her to have a raspiness? And I think that's due to her thyroid, right? She has thyroid issues. I love Candace. I loved her from 227. I loved her on some of these reality shows she did. I know she's had some several issues but I just like her personality overall. So anyway, I was watching the Parker's. Well, I'm watching the Parker's. I'm re-watching it from season one and on, girl. The Walking Dead. I started watching that again. Girl, spoiler. I was not expecting, again, spoiler. I was not expecting for Beta to be killed off like that, like that. I really wasn't expecting him to be killed off so fast and we're y'all. So is it me? Cause when he was killed, right?  So I think he was someone popular in their world. Like was he some type of rock star or something? I remember in one of the previous episodes another person recognizing him and he killed the person who recognized him if I remember correctly, Beta did. So yeah, he was apparently like a celebrity or a rock star in their world. Now I'm not watching that new girl that's giving me hairy powder with descendants with some zombies. I guess they're kids. I don't know if it's a few years after The Walking Dead. I'm nosy looking at my neighbors. Oh, they go to Richline.  Yeah, I don't know if it's a few years after The Walking Dead, but I'm not watching that. Yeah, I'm not watching that kiddie walking dead. That's what we're gonna call it. Disney World Walking Dead, we're not watching that. So let me say this. I did see the preview for the next, The Witches with Olivia Spencer and the girl from The Devil's World Prada. They really need to stop re-making these movies, y'all. The Witches is a classic. No one can pull off that, the grand high, like Angelica. What is Angelica? He's still, no one can do that. Anyway, so yeah, The Witches is being remade and I guess it's streaming coming up soon here in a couple more weeks. So yeah, so yeah, y'all watching The Parkers, watching The Walking Dead. I just started watching The Curse of Bly Manor. Y'all, at first I was like, okay, so what? Two kids, orphan kids, we're gonna have a nanny come in. Yeah, she's gonna be spooked out. Same old storyline, no. Well, it is the same old storyline, but it is disturbing. Like the first scene, the ending of the first scene, I was like, ooh, I was scared. I was really scared. So yeah, the hunting of Bly Manor. I think another one, they're just like, I think another one, they have all this scary stuff coming up for Halloween, right? They have another one on there called Evil. I may have to check that out, baby doll. There is a couple of things I added to my list on Netflix that I'm gonna have to watch, but yeah, that's what I'm watching. And of course, Happy Place. I love the Happy Place, y'all, with Ted dancing with his fine sit. Y'all, I love me some salt and pepper, but he got all salt, that's okay. Yeah, I like me some Ted dancing. I like the Happy Place. And one of you is correct. Like you can watch the Happy Place with anyone around because there's no cursing, there's no nudity. It's just a good clean show and I really do appreciate that. So yeah, watching that. So that's it, y'all. I wanted to do a really quick chit check to have some more content in between this. Now look, all of this stuff, I feel like I keep saying this. So I am busy, I am still very busy, but my mom was still pushing out content. Y'all just didn't know about it. That's what you do when you go on break. You still record stuff, edit it at your own pace, and then schedule it. So I kid you not, I have stuff scheduled now until December. So y'all should be good, but please bear with me. It may take me a couple of days, a couple of hours to respond to comments, to like a comment, because I try to like or love every comment. And I try to reply back if I can, especially if you have a question. I try to respond. But yeah, y'all, this what's gonna be going on. Anticipating all of these new reviews, but baby it's ending. But yeah, y'all, so I will see you guys, hopefully I'll be able to chit check with y'all in like two more weeks, okay? Bye.


Jessica Pagula vs. Cocoa Goff is the first semi-final for the WTA finals of 2023. And both players have had different rows to get to this stage. Pagula entered the tournament as the number five seed and would take on Rebecca in the first group stage match. And after going down early in the match, she came back to win 7-5-6-2. In her second match, she would take on Zachary, who'd only just gotten into the finals because of Mukhova withdrawing. And again, super impressive getting through in straights, 6-3-6-2. In her final group stage match, she would take on Sabalenka, the world number one. And again, in tough conditions, she would get through in straights, 6-4-6-3 to top the group. Goff entered the tournament as number three seed and would take on Jabur in her first group stage match. But this was no problem getting through in straights, 6-love, 6-1. In her second match, she'd take on Shveontek. But unfortunately, the conditions got to her and she'd go down in straights. She would go down 6-love, 7-5. In her final match, a must-win match, she'd take on Von Drussever, who hadn't won a match yet at this tournament. And after losing the first set and going down a break in the second, Goff would fight back to win 5-7, 7-6-6-3 to advance to the quarters as the second best player in the group. These two have only played the three times before, but they have played twice this year, splitting the head-to-head 1-1 with their previous match being in Montreal, 7-5 third set Pagula win, where she also went on to win the entire tournament in Canada. If Pagula is going to win this one, she needs to keep her head like she has for the entire tournament. She's probably been the best player in these conditions. Maybe Shveontek as well if you want to talk about the other group. But in her group, she definitely dealt with the conditions a lot better than everybody else. So she needs to keep doing that and also maybe push Goff around a little bit and come to the net as well. If Goff's going to win this match, she needs to stop those double folds. They have been killing her in these matches. She hit like 15 double folds against Von Drussever, got out of that match luckily, but she can't be doing that against Pagula who's super solid. What a great matchup. These two are playing doubles together at this event. They've played a couple of matches this year. It's a really fun matchup, but a good over with Pagula. She's been so solid this week and it just feels like Goff's being a little bit shaky in this tournament and she's kind of a little lucky to get here. If the conditions are windy, you've got to go with Pagula in three, but let me know down in the comments below who do you think's going to win.


what's up to all my fellow book lovers my name is Ian and on this channel we break down some of the greatest books and ideas of all time but today we are here to have some literary fun and do a literature genre tier ranking challenge so I've been receiving some great comments and I've been laughing so hard because I've been pissing people off with some of these tier ranking challenges people are like why would you give that enough I'm unsubscribing you have no idea what's going on and today I'm going to be giving you guys all the tea on literature genres and the people who read them and I'm sure I might piss I'm sure going to piss off some more people today because I feel like what you read really reflects who you are input output so let's get into it so in 2022 literary fiction which is option number one right here which is we're going to call fiction I still feel like literary fiction is the greatest field of art that has the most potential for play I was reading Haruki Murakami last night and I couldn't believe how good some of the writing was I was like how do you get this how do you get to this level it takes tens of thousands of hours tens of thousands of hours of practice and understanding the human experience to you know put everything together and setting and dialogue there's so many different elements and that's why literary fiction is going to get an s it has to be at the top it still has so much potential even though we're not using that potential and people are saturating the market and everything that's wrong with literary fiction today it's still there are still so many winners every single year so many great books that get published next we have nonfiction and I'm a little bit ify on nonfiction and I'll tell you why but I think nonfiction for sure receives it and hey once again the market is so saturated now that there are so many non nonfiction is a very broad topic but I feel I still feel that if you want to progress in the world if you want to change your life for instance and make more money or help more people or get um be happier nonfiction has basically everything that you need and if you maybe go to library genesis or somewhere if you're in poverty and get all the books you need to need for free you can change your life and that's why nonfiction is so important sometimes it becomes campy sometimes it gets a little bit weird there's a lot of repeating in nonfiction that's why I'm getting giving it an a that a lot of ideas much like fiction you know stealing like an artist is important but a lot of books are getting rehashed especially in the productivity the emotional the spiritual nonfiction world that I like to read reading a lot a lot of the ideas are rehashed all of the time so next on the list and if you guys disagree with me let me know down in the comments let me know what you guys think how you guys feel if you guys don't know on this channel we do huge book breakdowns sometimes I have four four to five hour book breakdowns and I plan to do hundreds of hundreds more talking about talking to writers talking about ideas so subscribe to the channel but let's talk about biographies everybody so I have a three prong system of judgment for these genres today first is how I feel about it second is the present market of these books of this genre what is being being put out now mostly in this genre then third the historical nature of the genre so next we have biography and I enjoy biographies I feel like they have a very good historical nature but I feel like the current biography market falls a little bit flat so I'm going to throw biography in the B section because there's so much to learn from biography we have biographies we have such big egos we think that we can get everything we need from a couple personal personal development websites or just reading a couple clips about people's lives but sometimes when you read someone's life from point A to point from A to Z and you realize how they lived in these little nuances and it gives you the full picture it gives you like I said a theme it's not just these little hacks or tips and we want to get these little take all the best hacks and tips and try to implement them into our own life but sometimes you have to change the hue or understand what type of life you're living in what aligns with that and a lot of people I feel like there's a couple different ways people read biographies sometimes it's just a way to pass time or you know you want to read about someone that you enjoy or it's a historical thing like for instance I'm on the slow journey that will take a couple decades of reading a biography of every single president of the United States but I mostly read biographies and love biographies or autobiographies for the magic they can bring to my own life all the different ways that they inform and reflect and help me grow as an individual so that's why they get a B and that's why I would recommend you checking out some biographies of people that you really enjoy to see what they did and it can inspire you I've read a ton of biographies of I just finished one on Frank Herbert uh excuse me Frank Herbert the science fiction author of dune so next we have classics I'm going to give classics a you know I'm going to give classics and a because I they are so the classics are so underrated people aren't the problem is now is that people aren't even smart enough to read the classics people are you know the reading rate is declining and that's one thing but when people aren't even smart enough when a lot of the people who are still reading aren't even smart enough to read the classics then that's even a bigger problem and the classics are sometimes very hard to read the canon is a challenge it is a you have to it feels like you're shooting yourself through a canon sometimes while reading the canon sorry for the bad joke but the classics uh C.S. Lewis said that every book every two or three new books you read you should read a classic and that's what I try to follow that a book pre 1900 I try to read a book from pre 1900 every single through every three books I read that are more modern and it really has impacted my life it really has given me this huge historical broadness that a lot of people don't have you know when getting multiple English degrees I would I would be so surprised that that so many kids had no idea about what was happening always there's always those nerds but you know that nerds have read everything and they've read all the classics but just piecing things together if you're interested in knowledge you need to piece together history that's one of the things that people also don't realize that we'll talk about that in the history section that you want to piece together the history of literature to understand literature today that you need to kind of understand the full broad spectrum if you want to understand it at a very deep level and that's really when the game starts I don't know if it's anyone ever played like an MMO RPG or something I used to play RuneScape and what they say is that you know you grind out all these skills you spend a thousand hours to max out your character but that's when the game actually really starts because now you have full access to play you are the strongest you have the strength now to play the game at its fullest that's how I feel about the classics that you really need to read all of them to really be able to think and feel about literature in general it's like the prerequisite to having an opinion about literature and I'm not there yet either and I'm talking about like a very high degree level you know very high degree opinion so next we have comedy and I'm going to throw comedy at the level of we're going to give comedy a d I have read a couple comedy books in the in the literature genre but I don't really see the point when we have stand-up comedians in 2022 when you can watch you know hop on Netflix HBO I have not seen that many people content in the literature genre community I have there's really funny like the most funny books that you can imagine way better than stand-up comedians but when I'm looking at what I'm going to read if I have all of this time what am I going to read and what's what's the market like what's the history of the market and what's I mean we could look at Shakespeare and all these people people writing comedies and what what do I want I don't really feel like time well spent is reading a comedy I would rather this is why I would rather do I would rather stretch you know roll out on some massage balls and watch and laugh my laugh my ass off at Dave Chappelle or you know a comedian that I like that's it's a really good time or watching it with friends watching it with your significant significant other I try to laugh at least once a day I try to watch something funny watch clips of a joke or listen to a podcast I know will be funny at least once a day it's why not why not be like I'm always smiling it's it's fun but you know I just don't feel like the literature genre of comedy really is is it so next we have comic books and I would graphic novels and I would throw manga manga manga or whatever in there also and I'm very torn on this because there have been a couple of comic books graphic novels and mangas that have absolutely transformed my life like are at the top an s really really good but unfortunately the industry for really judging the past the present and everything else I am going to have to give you know anime or excuse me manga and comics and graphic novels to see because 99 out of 100 people who are really into the stuff are using it as a way of escapism they are using it as a way to not grow to not transform themselves and that's it it's very weak the whole culture the whole thing that has been built around it is not really about growth once again it's about escapism and I understand with the graphic novel with being able to have images we can tell such a beautiful story and when it is impactful and the writing is good it's really good but most mangas and comics and graphic novels aren't very good they're not the level of the sandman comic series a full metal alchemist attack on titan those things can transform your life they can make you think very deeply and feel very deeply and a lot and I and I should admit that a lot of comics and mangas out there actually do make you feel very deeply and they help you access deeper emotions and I guess they're really good for that so maybe we can give comics and graphic novels a b because even though maybe intellectually they give you nothing they actually do help you feel a lot so I will change my mind on that that even though all now I have a lot of friends and they don't have any intellectual you know don't mind me saying this capacity and this is all they read all they read is comics and graphic novels but they do have a lot of emotional capacity from what they are reading in you know I always tell them I try to give them to read like really good and transformational comics or main mangas and they just aren't into it they just are you know and it's it's whatever man but I just so it gets a b okay crime and detective you know I'm going to give this a c this is what this is the same story I feel like Walter Moseley books or James Elroy books or fuzz by and I'm trying to remember there's really really good books but it's been turned into airport thrillers it's been turned into crime and detective dolls are for old grandmas now it the genre is almost dead it's for the people who are trying to tap out the 30 year retirement plan workers and that's fine but if I'm on a 30 year retirement plan right if you say Ian hey man here's 30 years and maybe that will happen one day I am going to try to grow as much as I can when I'm not doing that I might that job is going to be deafening and so I'm not going to go on vacation or go home every night and just read more deafening things I'm going to be trying to turn up the volume and live the most fullest expression of my life and with art and with literature I'm trying to do the most I can but the problem is and this is the problem with all these different things is that if you do that pretend you you are that person and you then you suddenly become disenfranchised about your job and you want to quit and you get depressed all these different things start to happen so I'm very suspicious and this is going to be a repeated theme throughout this text about the crime and detective genre because how people treat it what people are doing with it what the market is for but some of the greatest writing some of the greatest storytelling is happening there for sure like I said I if you are an aspiring writer and that's why you have to take it seriously if you are someone who wants to be a great writer there is so much to steal there's so much great stuff to mimic and to learn from in crime and detective novels they really know how to push characters in a plot and dialogue and sex and suspense all these different things and it's such a competitive market that they're all actually really good at at least a lot of people are actually really good at it so as a writer it's some it's something I've learned a lot and I learned that from David Foster Wallace if you go look at David Foster Wallace you know one of the greatest authors of our generation who is a library at the University of Austin Texas there's a lot more than a lot of crime novels in there a lot of like really mainstream or crime novels and then you look at his notes in there and he's talking about he's taking stuff he's learning from it and seeing what they do from it you can learn a lot from it so next we have dystopian and I'm going to give dystopian an A because dystopian I feel like really pushes people to grow it really shows people really should create action when it's good if you look at parable of the sober biactively or butler or children of men or the mandibles or you know and many orcs and crate by Margaret Atwood I'm a huge fan of dystopian novels you know I read them all the time those are just some of the ones off the top of my head they have all made me grasp a different view of the world they have made me sit there and feel that pit in my stomach made me feel terrible you know when something makes you feel terrible it can change your it can change your life and I think that more people should be writing dystopian novels and connecting it to events in the future and it's something that people can resonate with it makes us feel it creates that sympathetic nervous system response that fight or flight response and we love that right we love to have that and that helps promote growth helps build the vagus nerve as in relation to you know life and everything but also to literature and our aspirations and it does scare us I don't like and some people think that you know I know people who read dystopian novels and they think it's actually going to come true and they'll know how we stop dystopia from happening we educate people there is no political solution there is no religious solution everybody I hate to break it to you you know whatever political party you're going to vote for isn't going to help because they are going to do things and that's going to cause a pendulum to shift to make other people mad and it's just going to keep shifting and shifting the only way to stop that is through education to create a nonviolent society may having people reach the emotional intellectual and spiritual level where they stop being violent toward other people in a physical and emotional manner so that it can end the cycle of abuse that's what we have to start that's where we have to start and almost everybody has to be on board and we have to have a justice system to really reflect and get rid of the people who can't really get on board when every 99.9 of percent of the population is on board and our society isn't like that today a lot of people aren't physically violent but as they are pushed to that they will be if I said to you if you know if you're out with your wife or your husband or someone and someone said the worst possible thing if they were just harassing you and saying the worst possible thing would you fight them would you hit them they were just disrespecting you and call it you know just whatever the worst possible thing and a lot of people would over half of the people in America are going to get physical at some point if you taunt them too much and we have to get rid of that because there will always be a taunter there will always be a situation and anyway that's why I feel like dystopian is so important that it can help us understand where we're going and it shows you like I said when you actually think about it it doesn't matter what we really do it doesn't matter if you vote democrat or republican or if you live somewhere else it doesn't matter what you do there's always going to be problems until we reach that level so why not just focus on that problem why are we focusing on all these minute problems and these polarized opinions like here in America right now there's all this abortion stuff happening who cares I'm I'm 100% pro-choice but I don't even care I'm caring all I care about right now is educating people so that we can stop the cycle of abuse because that will save more people than focusing or wasting energy on anything else right now so let's hop into it essay essays you know essays are going to receive a B there are some great essays out there I feel like essays are an underrated thing once again if we want to mention David Foster Wallace go check out his book considered the lobster if you want to see some really really good essays but once again essays have been almost or have been taken over by politics by certain political opinions there's essays now have very deep political opinions and it's unfortunate that we can't get back to that level and a lot of people like to blame the left and they are to blame but the right is starting to get into it now the culture ward the culture war is just getting going if you thought the culture wars and polarization is bad now the right is ramping up theirs and it's only going to get worse and I feel like the essay is a great place to talk about many different things and not including politics but just life in general if you look at most you know and I you know honestly I'm gonna give the essay and a oops the essay and a because if you actually I love reading literature journals and that's what and those are all just essays those are all essays and I would consider that some of the most transformational and mind boggling things you can find in the essay genre so all right fanfiction is going to receive and and it should you know honestly should receive an f but there is a lot of actually really good fanfiction out there and that and there's a lot of young writers trying that that's why I'm not going to give it enough but the market is saturated you know having harry potter erotica gay erotica is great and it's you know it really is great but once again where is the transformation there where is it and people get caught here forever and I feel like fanfiction is for the people I 100 believe this fanfiction is for the people who aren't confident enough to write fiction or you know just overbought the broad term of fiction including all the general genres you know crime fantasy science fiction that's why they write fanfiction every single person I know who writes fanfiction will actually probe a little bit and ask them and get to know them as a person they have self-esteem issues and that's probably why they're getting so engulfed in these stories in the first place it's a very female dominated arena and as we know that I just had three students in my class the other day I had a just a total breakdown of of seventh graders crying about twilight and who even knew that people were so reading twilight but apparently it's still a big deal and that's cool and people get really into books and they want to write more about it and live in that world and like I said it's a bridge but a lot of people never cross the bridge or they just are like sleeping on the bridge like they never cross the bridge it's a great way to learn to write it's an easy way to write yeah and I and that's why I think it's I think it's good but just when you see adults doing when you see people have been trapped in fan fiction for decades it's like oh this is this is revered this is not promoting growth at all so now we have I don't feel like anyone should be very pissed off maybe some people are pissed off about the d for comedy or the c for crime but fantasy I'm going to give a b that fantasy for sure is a very high r I feel like fantasy has even better and this might be controversial better than science fiction that some very high literary art and but where it falls short once again is where is the merit where is the transformation in it and I feel like once again a lot of people get lost in the in writing and reading science fiction in or excuse me fantasy in the unicorns and in the in the weird subplots and it gets very campy and people love that and people but I a couple years ago I went on a fantasy kick and I tried reading all the biggest stuff and I did I probably read over a hundred fantasy books and I felt like a lot of them were just playing on tropes playing and just writing to market they weren't really they really have that trend they were something was missing and I feel like science fiction has that something that potential that showing us it's almost by creating this totally fantasy world we get to detach from all of our problems and a lot of human problems and and when you take that too far though we lose sort of the essence of fiction which is trans when you finish a book you should be different than when you started and when I finish fantasy books sometimes I'm emotionally manipulated which fine but I'm not really psychologically or politically or whatever I don't I'm not I don't there's not as many transformations in those realms sometimes that human element is missed and sometimes it's not though and that's where fantasy if you look at like the Lord of the Ring series and others that that's where they go crazy and actually have more ability than anything else when they sometimes just have this small tether back to the human world so next we have historical fiction and I'm going to give historical fiction also maybe you know I'm a fan of books man and I'm going to give some pretty bad ratings today but we're going to have to expand the A's and the B's I think historical fiction is a great genre I just reread gene wolf soldier in the mist soldier I can't remember what's called soldier in the mist series great series go check out that historical fiction has a lot of merit and I feel like once again it's one of these genres that a lot of old people get caught in so I really feel like it's a low B or a high C honestly it's a genre that a lot of people camp in and get caught in but you can learn a lot about different eras and I think it has so much merit to research a different era and write about it because it's once again we'll talk about this in history and let's just throw history and I think that history for sure deserves an A and so we'll just talk about both these at once if you want to be once again this is my opinion a really educated human someone who really understands what's happening you almost have to have just like with literature in the classics you have to have a whole picture not a whole picture but a decent picture of what happened throughout history and let's say by the time you're 45 or 50 and have read and understand if I told you hey what was happening in Asia and the 1200s or in Europe or what was the what was what's the history South America or the um or the Maya what could you tell me and you could slowly put that together you could read a couple history books a year and listen to a couple history podcasts you can slowly put everything together over a couple decades and I feel like that's a very that has a lot of merit to it like listening to history and I really love to listen to history audiobooks I listen to them on yoga every night before bed I get through at least 10 to 20 history audiobooks a year then probably another 10 or 20 history books a year if I'm not on a history kick you know just as a base level and I have I feel like by the age of 28 where I'm at now put together a nice catalog in my head of world history of American history of all different types of history and what I'm interested in I've you know and it's really important it connects back to historical fiction that then I certain time periods I'm interested in like for instance a four or five years ago I was on the Eastern Front kick so I read a bunch of um historical novels about the Eastern Front about two years ago I read a bunch of stuff about the Civil War then I read a couple Civil War historical fiction novels um I'm kind of on a Roman grease kick right now so I just read about that I'm reading you know a couple historical novels in that realm it's it's a nice blend of it's a nice kind of blend you read about history maybe and get a whole time period down then you have some fun and read some historical fiction pieces about it and kind of understand you know the period a little bit more in the dress and how people acted according to this author and I I feel like this is very underrated and it gives me a lot of perspective and once again if you understand the motions of history what I said earlier makes sense that there really are no political or religious solutions we've been trying those for a long time and once you factor in technology and the weaponry that AI weaponry it's like all right we need to slow down slow the roll here and really build and fix humans to the level of non-violence you know and a lot of people don't like that you know but so I'm going to give whore a that once again I feel like comedy there's a lot of great things in here but it's just a form of escapism that these books are great to read these books are great and there's so much to learn much like it's a high I'll give whore a high d and a lot of people get pissed off about this but I look well how how you how you know how I'm ranking this at even at the fourth level is and this is how what do people what are the people who read these books what are they like and when I think of the people who I know who read whore books most of the time and I hate to judge people most of the time they aren't trying to transform the world and that's really my standard of life are you trying to be an NPC a non-player character in this simulation or are you trying to do something are you trying to make an impact even if it's small very small even if it's something small and maybe you're building up to it over the course of decades maybe it's you just being a really good mom or like you know something like that but I feel like a lot of people I know who are really into whore books just fall short of all those markers they just fall short and why because it's a form of escapism a form of projecting the libido and fantasizing and moving into dark depressive states and it programs you we don't like to say it but when you read whore and you watch whore movies it puts a negative programming within you and that's fine I like confining the shadow and like I like whore movies I like whore books they're they're they're wonky I try to read them every once in a while or watch them every once in a while they really they transform you for sure they can get you out of your shell and like really make you think but that anxiety I don't feel like it's healthy all the time I feel like it's something to have in the bag much like a comedy book much like a whore a whore book is something to have in the bag but now with the saturation of the market and once again kind of you know just the weird people who are into it I don't like to stigmatize it but stigmatize those people but why is it always that those people aren't doing things to transform the world and are to have this darker more reclusive nature to them and having a darker reclusive nature isn't bad but when you're wasting that away on nothing and you can't waste it away on nothing I'm all for wasting your life away on nothing if you are meditating if you are wasting another way in self-contemplation all right that's who you are you were you were born here to not do anything but if you are still trying to be an active participant in society and kind of moving down into those zones being like that you know this may be judgmental of me but I have just analyzed and thought about people who are into this into the horror genre and like I said it's very it's really rare for me to meet people who are really into the horror genre and that makes up a whole part of their catalog to be like I said a person who is really trying to transform himself and transform other haven't really seen that yet most of the time like I said they're spending a lot of their time up in this these realms in the fiction nonfiction classics dystopian essay and history realm they're really spending a lot of their time up there not down here lit rpg role-playing games all right we're just gonna give that one now um all right memoirs memoirs slash autobiographies I'm going to give this one a I'm going to give this one a B once oh same same in that yeah a B because more so than the biography you can learn about some of the really nuanced things about life we were talking about earlier like for instance David Goggins can't hurt me one of the best biographies written in a long time there is so much transformation you can learn in that book about how to change your life that it's unreal how to push yourself and like a lot of it's maybe even unhealthy so yeah I think that memoirs are basically the same thing I was talking about biography a lot of a lot of transformational potential mysteries I'm going to give a D once again I feel like some great writing here some great things to learn but just doesn't have that just doesn't have that itch man okay philosophy of course is an s you need to read philosophy it is the high art if you want to think and grow and feel I have another book go check out another another tier ranking video about the branches of philosophy and yeah I feel like philosophy is very important I would recommend the story of philosophy by will Durant if you've never read anything about western philosophy anyone can read it's a great book and will blow your mind you'll see once again so we talked about literature and stories now we talked about history understanding thought and the history of thought and ideas is philosophy there's so many people out there who are just neo-contians or neo-spinozians or weird idealists now and the things that they say and they have no idea that they are that they've been they've just heard these ideas have just been manufactured and replayed so many times and put on the tv or in rate on you know in music or whatever and people now are into religion or spirituality people are being these watered-down philosophers and I always say that it's so funny that imagine you know a middle school basketball team could be that's the best middle school basketball team in the country could beat the 1930s nba champions you know I mean just because of the skill and technique you know even though they're all middle schoolers and they're 11 years old they could smack them and that's how I don't understand how people today aren't smarter than the people who are thinking in you know 16 or 1700s like you know conch or you know uh spinoza how are we not we people are still giving watered-down versions they don't even realize so understanding the the history of philosophy gives you the history of thought and then you understand what your ideas are about that's what's really important you understand where your ideas are coming from are you are some of your views of the world plutonian or spinozian or deridian like what where are your ideas coming from and who are you and you have to understand philosophy and really the history of it at a base level to understand that to really start playing the game of ideas and life and if you don't have that you don't really get to enter the arena if you don't you want to talk deep you want to have deep talks and get all deep about life well if you don't understand the history of philosophy then you're just running in circles you're just you know not really making progress or not you know or giving out flaws i hear people all the time having ideas i'm like oh that's been basically disproven 300 years ago poetry also receives of course an a an s and poetry is flooded now especially you know i'm honestly gonna give poetry an a because poetry now is a lot worse than what it was poetry at some point was an s it was better than fiction in the early you know until really 1970s and 80s when new york and san francisco schools of thought really polluted it it had a lot of potential but now with identity poetry and diversity quotas in mfa programs and at universities and the politic is politicization of poetry in all the wrong ways people with writing political phones without a being able to write even a good normal poem it's kind of turned into a bit of a shit show and yeah so poetry in general i feel like is so valuable that everyone needs to read poetry the history of poetry is also important i keep talking about this understanding it but just having poetry that speaks to you it's can transform you faster than anything else you can sit down and read a poetry book in an hour sometimes and it can literally transform in in ways you didn't know possible to make you feel very deeply can transform you intellectually it can make you feel deeper maybe probably than anything on this list so poetry all the way man i have a ton of videos on this channel about poetry so political books i'm going to give political books a c i feel like once again they have a lot of potential but they have just are watered down in the culture wars that the idea of politics is really politics is really fun to read about and all the ideas and history but a lot of the books getting pushed now especially in 2022 have are just pushing aside and i just read a great book by a libertarian author and i'm an anarchist i'm apolitical and i read a great book i can't remember the name if it's guy named scott he's a libertarian guy named scott h or something he had one book like the end of about about the iraq war and about all that but this was this he wrote a very anti-war novel basically talking about how we didn't need to be involved in a lot of the conflicts involved in as americans obviously you go back to vietnam but we've been involved in hundreds of conflicts around the world that you'll never even hear about like in samalia and guatemala and all these random aran crunch there's all these random events that have happened and that we've been manipulating in the world and like a political book like that is absolutely amazing it show it really proved an anti-war not proved but really gave a great anti-war perspective and stuff like that's really good but then there's you know just endless books about trump or biden or about the democrats or republicans about all these different things they're just a waste and really the extremes the extreme books like i said this very very very anti-war book or maybe a very pro-war book that tells us this is why we need to stabilize these countries and this is why we need though they're very interesting why in nation states make the decisions that they do and once again i really don't believe in the concept of government at all because it actually doesn't exist it's just human beings claiming authority and people um then accepting that authority but um and when if we all lived in a peaceful way with the earth and each other we wouldn't need the government and we should be figuring that out with all the money and all the resources that we can but we don't actually care about that because if the government solved that problem it would cease to exist and it was we know and that every pension plan everything you know the military pension plans those would all go away life as we know it you know control all the power all that would cease if we because how do you know we don't care is just go talk to twelfth graders who are now graduating it's me everyone's about to graduate see what they've learned see what the trillions of dollars that we know hundreds of billions of dollars that goes into if not trillions of dollars into education that we spend every single year where does that go what do they know on average a kid spends at around 10 000 hours in school or a couple thousand hours excuse me from middle school to high school where they are conscious and can read and can grow and can think and they come out learning absolutely nothing they learn some math that they forget really fast they can speak and interact kind of but they in that time could have read hundreds of books and transform themselves and learn martial arts and how to defend themselves and how to control their energy or learn yoga and meditation what do they know they know absolutely nothing about and they don't care about life they just want to get a job they are there for a job their parents went through the same system and everyone just cares about money and stability and security and it's an absolute mess man and that's why I feel like political books you know anyway if you've made it this far into the video if you're you know 30 minutes in you know this is a part of me everybody religion really religious books i'm going to give religious books a a b you know if we just kind of cut out honestly we'll just give it a d because if i look at the state of the market it's mostly islamic and christian books and a lot of spiritual books and a lot of them are a waste there's a ton of really good religious books out there that can transform your life but you know if you are playing you know i i feel like if you are playing on if you are still believing if you still believe in christ christianity islam at a very base level then you're not really understanding life that there are people at them and hear me out here there if you are really pushing the limits of christianity or um islam or judeism or whatever hinduism then or buddhism you can transform your life and you can actually go very deep a lot of people don't i'm sure if you're a christian out there you understand that a lot of people actually don't read the bible don't go deeper don't study christian theory and really try to live the principles and there's just a lot of fake-ass christians and religious people out there and a lot of these books are made for them and that's why i kind of basically feel a little bit weird and you know i have a very i'm very anti-religious but once again i understand the merits of religion and see good in it and for people to actually participate in it and go deep into it there is transformation in there and that's fine but i feel like a lot of the books really aren't promoting that it's really you know so even judging from that level there's not very much in there religious fiction i'm f romance okay romance here we go everybody romance so romance is going to get a once again it just look core core comedy whore mystery and romance those are like basically if i look and thriller and we'll just throw a thriller in here too we'll just talk about them all right now these are the big those are the big ones right these are these are the big genres that once again are really good and have a lot of great writing and a great potential and they're really fun to read and you should read them a couple times a year like you should read a comedy book a horror book a mystery book a romance book and a thriller at least once a year for sure if not a couple if you read a lot but in terms of ranking them what is thriller ranked how do we compare thriller to philosophy if philosophy is at the top that's the pinnacle everything and that's like the high standard thriller thrillers have absolutely nothing on the history of philosophy or literary fiction or nonfiction or the classics so that's what that's why these are down here and romance once again i feel like is a place where you can go and learn about motion and depth but it's really a place where people get manipulated into the idea of romantic love go watch my video on how we the psychology of romantic love if you want a full breakdown on this but 40 percent of marriages end in divorce and people have terrible relationships because they think that this is how relationships work in these romance novels and a lot of times people are older and they have a crappy love life people sometimes people read romance because they have a crappy love life and they aren't very happy so they read it for that energy or they don't have that and they read it for that and i really feel like romance novels are manipulating us and what we need to feel in our relationships i feel like love is spontaneous and great and it goes up and down sometimes you fall out of romantic love and back into it but core love is always there love has nothing really to do with love potion love it that's there sometimes but other times it's not but you should should still be having hot passionate hot passionate sex with your partner and getting into the you know you know growing with them sexually or even if it that even if romantic love isn't there like i know so many like you know it's so crazy i know we're just kind of this is all these videos are kind of off topic i know so many dudes out there that don't ask their wives what they actually want and so many wives out there that won't know there isn't talk on both ends like hey what should we do you know what we should be doing i know this might be i'm just dropping controversy here talking about anti-religion we should be trying to have the most extraterrestrial orgasms we can because those transformation i know this is crazy that if you have think about the best orgasm you ever had in your life think of that was a hundred times better how would that feel would that make you feel a certain way or show you new depth of life that is possible but unless you for people who just you know stick it in the hole or you know do the the the rubby rub or not to not to you know go all crazy here there are there are profound limits if you learn tontra or you get into sex toys or experiment psychedelic drugs to orgasms and to depth and emotions and and you have to most the time you have to have that with another human being you have to have a partner in the rodeo to do that with and it's better not a random person it's better with someone you've known for years who knows exactly who you are to give you that and to help you with that and once again that that that has nothing to do with romantic love that has to do with understanding and empathy and romantic love can make that better and it can't help that and can't help push that forward but once again i know so many people who never talk about that and never experience that because they feel weird or they've been programmed it's so funny man it's so funny but that has to do with the romance i feel like a lot of that is projected satire i'm just going to give satire enough i don't know people who read satire science fiction is going to receive an a and that looks like is going to be yeah science fiction for sure receiving an a because i feel like it isn't maybe the writing maybe sometimes falls short a little bit shorter than fantasy but i feel like the ideas and the human connection and the transformational connection is really good that science fiction books like hyperion and dune and others are absolutely can absolutely transform your life in your thinking that they can make you a better person they can help you grow as a human being and science fiction authors are really really into it and they take it very seriously fantasy people i feel like are campy sometimes and they get into dungeons and dragons and role playing and all these things science fiction people know they are in it they are weird they dive deep and they are in the game and that's why it is receiving an a next we have self-help books and a lot of people may think that i like self-help books and i actually do and i'm going to give self-help books a b a lot of the time self-help books aren't very helpful but if you read enough of them you'll find enough techniques and things that you'll be able to use and it just helps you keep motivated i read self-help all the time and i don't really implement very much but it helps me keep on the path it helps me keep motivated it helps me understand myself and what is happening and you just have to find the right people don't settle for the big people out there like the weird weird people you know there are a ton of like for instance i would go read cal newport's books anything by cal newport deep work for instance uh the one thing by gary keller anything by uh lynchpin or uh shipping the uh the new shipping book by seth godin go read some of those books those are some of the greatest self-help books they can transform your life i mean if we're talking about straight personal transformation books they are in the self-help genre but there are so many terrible self-help books out there too so you need to make sure to do your research find the best ones out there i just named three authors right there at cal newport gary keller's book the one thing and seth godin's lynchpin go read those and your your life will be transformed so short stories i am going to give short stories a b also i feel like short stories are underutilized underrated the new york school once again has kind of ruined short stories at some level but they are 100 viable go read burn man uh burn man on texas porch by ant mark anthony jarman if you can find it anywhere if you want to see the level that short i'm sure you know the level that short stories can go short stories are really good and i really enjoy them and i feel like they have a very great and rich textbooks are going to receive an f i'd never really see the point of a textbook i feel like you can learn a lot of these things without a textbook what i mean by that you know you don't need math a math textbook to learn math anymore you know you don't need to sign sex book you should we should be reading books like individual books for history class if you think about it start learning history like the seventh grade when we're smart enough but kids aren't smart enough anymore that's a problem the kids aren't smart enough anymore people you know parents suck now that's basically it we can't really do this westerns are going to receive go into this d category same same thing um young adult is going to receive an e i feel like young adult for people under the age of 18 receives an a or b but young adult in general i know i i have a weird feeling and this is crazy that more people i know who read young adult i i you know i'm a middle school teacher i taught high school most of my kids who i know who read in middle school in high school don't read young adult probably about half of them read young adult but i know so many adults that read young adult and i don't understand why people you know when you have the whole list up here everything from c and up why you'd be reading young adult and that's why it's getting an e i get has this capacity but you want the highest emotional capacity go up here if you want the highest storytelling go up here like everything is like kind of it's almost like one of those things like i said that people just want to tune out with cravedon fiction is going to receive a b because i feel like cravedon fiction is a really good really good medium like i said considered the lobster by um i that's what probably instead of an essay cravedon fiction is you know considered the lobster by david fawcett wallis there's a lot of good stuff here so if you guys are interested in watching my breakdown of the of classic novels go check that out right here and then on the other side you're going to see my breakdown of the branches of philosophy subscribe and i'll see you guys later peace


We just concluded Operation First Light 2015, which was an operation that focused on social engineering related fraud schemes. It was organized by Interpol's anti-corruption and financial crime sub-directorate in cooperation with the Lo Bang office, which is based out of Bangkok, Thailand. The operation consisted of 23 participating countries, and in the result 514 suspects were arrested and 15 call centers were shut down in countries such as China, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Indonesia. This initiative started in 2014 at Interpol with an export working group meeting that we organized. From there, we had Operation First Light 2014, which involved 6 countries and resulted in 22 arrests. In this year's operation, not only did we expand the number of participating countries, but the regions of influence, and we hopefully will expand it further in 2016 to cover the globe. Now, social engineering fraud is basically just a common term that we use for how the criminals can con victims out of their money. Specifically in Operation First Light 2015, it was basically involving telecom fraud and then also what's called CEO manager fraud. And as I mentioned before, Interpol has a holistic approach as we talk about social engineering fraud. We not only do the public awareness, as you can see on our website on social engineering fraud, but we have export working group meetings to talk about this problem and how law enforcement can mitigate the threat throughout the world. And then finally, we have targeted law enforcement operations such as Operation First Light that focuses on these type of fraud schemes throughout the world. Once again, I'd like to say it was a very successful operation and it's in cooperation with law enforcement agencies throughout the world that made this happen.


Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Raheem Jabir ibn Abdullah al-Ansari Radoanullahi ta'ala alayh is one of the most outstanding and brilliant companions of the holy prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa alihi wa sallam A man who was praised by the prophet of Islam in the Ahl al-Bayt And truly a unique individual who lived all the way until the time of the fifth holy imam Imam Muhammad al-Baqir sallallahu alayhi wa sallam Jabir ibn Abdullah was very knowledgeable He was devout towards the holy prophet and the Ahl al-Bayt He was a champion of the wilaya of Ali Muhammad And of course, he was an individual who reminded people about the excellence of the Ahl al-Bayt Peace and blessings be upon them He was a man who would continuously praise and speak about the merits of the family of the holy prophet We have a beautiful narration from sheikh al-Tusi He talks about the narration from Imam al-Sadiq al-Salam From Imam Ali ibn al-Hussain, Zayn al-Abideen al-Salam Who narrates and says that on one occasion I was walking behind my father Imam al-Hussain And my uncle Imam al-Hasan, peace and blessings be upon them And this was in Medina It was the year that Imam al-Hasan al-Salam was martyred He says all of a sudden we saw Jabir ibn Abdullah al-Ansari And Anas ibn Malik approach But Jabir did something that caught our attention He went down on the ground and started to kiss the feet of Imam al-Hussain and Imam al-Hasan Peace and blessings be upon them Of course Jabir was not a young man at that time He was a man who had taken part in the battles with the holy prophet He was a senior companion of Rasulullah And Anas ibn Malik was surprised by this demonstration of love and loyalty that Jabir had towards the blessed grandsons of the holy prophet And so when the Imam al-Salam went away Imam Zayn al-Abideen said I remained to hear the conversation between Jabir and Anas And Jabir would explain why he did what he did He would say to Anas One day I was with the prophet of Islam He asked me, oh Jabir bring me my sons Hassan and Hussain And he was so close to them, so attached to them So I went to bring them And when I found them, I carried one and I held the other And I swapped them around, Jabir says And so when I reached the holy prophet He saw me doing this And then he was delighted, he was joyful And so he asked me, oh Jabir do you love them Do you express your gentleness and kindness towards them He says, why should I not and I know how much they mean to you Ya Rasulullah So the prophet of Islam responds to Jabir And says, let me tell you this, when Allah SWT created me He placed my existence as a notfa As a small clot so to speak And he placed it, which is pure in the loins of my father Adam And this kept going from one loin to the other of the prophets Until the time of Abdul Muttalib Then it split to two One of it was in the loins of my father Abdullah And another was with Abu Talib He says, and then I was born And I am the final of the messengers and the prophets Ali Ibn Abi Talib was born And so he is the greatest of the Ossiya, the vice-chairman Then this particular notfa combined from me and Ali And indeed these two, Hasan and Hussain were born They are my progeny And indeed he looked at then Imam Hussain AS And would say that from him there would be a man who would be born Who would fill the earth with justice and equity As it has been filled with evil and vice He says That victory be for whoever loves them Loves their father, loves their mother Loves the one who stands against them And fights them Of course, Jabir Ibn Abdullah Al-Ansari According to narrations was the first of the righteous believers To perform the Ziyara of the blessed grave of Sayyid Al-Shuhada About Abdullah Al-Hussain AS And this was of course famously On the 40th after the martyrdom of Imam Hussain The 20th of Safar According to most narrations in the year 61 after Hijrah This narration is told by his servant And his servant would come forward and say Atiyah that I bought my master, Jabir Ibn Abdullah Who by that time had become blind And when I bought him to the land of Karbala He performed the ghusul from the river of Forat And thereafter I saw that he was in the state of grief and mourning And he asked me take me to the grave of my beloved Hussain I held his hands and the moment we reached on the grave He threw himself on the grave and began to kiss it And began to weep until he became unconscious After he regained his consciousness He began to recite the Ziyara The wonderful lines which expressed his deep connection His wonderful loyalty with Imam Al-Hussain AS His desire to abbeen with the Imam Peace and blessings be upon him That moment Jabir recited Ya Hussain, Ya Hussain, Ya Hussain He called the beautiful name of Sayyid al-Shahadat three times And then he famously said Habibun la yujibu Habiba That a beloved is not responding back to the one who loves him Then he says how can you answer back When your neck has been what severed And your head separated from your body And that your lips has been stabbed But I bear witness You are I bear witness, the son of the prophets You are the son of the master of the believers You are the one who established piety and taqwa And the fifth from the people of the cloak And then he wonderfully mentions The wonderful lines that should be reflected upon And then he famously says Towards the companions Peace be upon you I bear witness that these individuals were buried with Imam Al-Hussain Established their prayers They gave the zakat, they enjoyed the good and forbid the evil And then he says Part of what that wonderful lines by Jabir ibn Abdullah al-Ansali Next to the grave of Hussain ibn Ali Was that I swear by the one who sent the message towards the Holy Prophet We gained the reward of what you did But Atiyah said I looked at Jabir and said How is it that we gained the reward that they have attained Where we have not come and fought with them We have not struck anyone with the sword And we have not indeed given our lives Jabir said Atiyah I had my beloved Rasulullah says Man ahabba qawman hushira ma'ahum Wa man ahabba amal qawmin ushrika fee amalihim Whomsoever loves the actions of a group of people They get the reward of those people And whomsoever loves a group of people Will be resurrected with them Peace and blessings be upon Jabir ibn Abdullah al-Ansali The right cheers of the Sahaba of the Holy Prophet And the Ahlul Bayt and all of Shohadah i-Karbala


Our next speaker is Grace. I wish I could show her full photo in all of its glory, but you could probably find that on our website. She is a Kung Fu master, Wushu artist, ninja, fighter, slash designer, working with a lot of big labels. Hiding in the corner. Trifecta martial arts. Yeah, I think I'll just let her take the stage and then we can reflect on what happens afterwards. Please welcome, sorry. Kung is also a very creative person, so I need notes to keep me on track, otherwise I'd be talking the entire night. I'm also the oldest young person you'll ever meet, therefore I also need notes. Alright, so as you all know, I'm one of the founders of Trifecta Martial Arts, so we don't have much time, so I'm just going to skim through some of my greatest hits. Okay, so... Right now? Okay. So, at my last talk, I was on the panel with Mr Dennis Goh, who is the founder of Pangui Goh Wei, and he was like, you know, oh my god, I used to tell people that like, when you feel awful about yourself or your day, come and talk to me. I will make you feel better, but after hearing you talk, you make me feel better. So, trust me, I've got very interesting things for you tonight. Okay, so just very quickly, I was classically trained in web and graphic design, and it was just one of those things that I just happened to be good at. The golden path was laid out in front of me. I graduated from design school, went to uni in Melbourne, got accepted into a prestigious advertising job in Europe, and it looked like my future was all set. Student of the year. Okay, and I was on the path to my dream. But a few steps into that path, I got to Europe, and I realised I didn't quite love design as much as I had hoped. Shit, now what? I'm here. Why is this happening to me? I had it all planned out, and it seemed like that plan wasn't for me. If this, I'm leaving. So I came home right after my contract, bumped around for a bit and then decided, oh yeah okay, I'm going to start a design company with my friends. Okay, the person who hated design is going to start a design company. How do you think that went?  Every single day I hated my clients. I couldn't even love my paycheck because I did not have a paycheck. The landlord wanted half an eye and my kidney for rent, and the clients didn't pay. So what did I say? F this, I am leaving. So in my 23 year old mind, I thought okay, so I don't love design. What next? What do I love? Okay, hang on. I love to sing. I think that could work. So I did. And what is so bad about moving to Hong Kong, doing a Mariah Carey, dating someone more than twice my age to get a recording contract? If Mariah could do it, honey, I could do it. Okay, so it was all done out of love, so they say. The person would have nothing to gain, but then I realized that she had sold me to someone else, and they were threatening a lawsuit to make me sign the contract. So I said, F this, I am leaving. So my money was drying up, and I figured, you know what, I was trying to do the things that I thought that I love. So now, I'm going to wise up. I am going to chase the money. This time, I started a company, and we ran seminars on how to make money on eBay. You can, by the way. And that company actually made money. Okay? And because we traveled so much, we decided that the smartest thing to do was not to leave two apartments empty half the time. We would rent one apartment and leave it empty half the time. Pets hit. I'm such a genius. So little did I know that before starting the company, my business partner had scammed people of money. And he must have received some threatening messages that, you know, something big was happening. So he ran off to China for a factory visit. And I was left in that house. And people were coming to our door demanding for money. So I was dragged into it. People were accusing me of scamming them too. It was so bad, I actually feared for my safety. So what did I say? Exactly. So okay, let's take a short breather here. And talk about my relationships. Okay? You'd think that if so many things in my life had gone wrong, at least one thing would go right. So from the beginning of my story to this point, my first love had cheated on me, dumped me. I had a whole string of relationships shorter than my hair. I dated someone else who had flung a bedside table at me and then left me because she wanted to join the circus. True story, people still do want to run away and join the circus. I met someone else. Someone special. So special. It was like my escape route elsewhere.  She lived in Melbourne so I packed up, moved back to Melbourne. That went on for a little bit. Cheated on me twice. Two different people. And I came home to a note on the dining table which basically just read F this, I'm leaving you. Okay? So there I was with nothing to my name.  So I stayed in Melbourne. I barricaded myself at home, cried for three days, went out and got a puppy. Because I felt like if I didn't, I would run like I always have. And for some reason I felt compelled not to run this time. Long walks with my new needy puppy forced me to think about the events that have culminated to this point and I realised that life, my life, was a series of patterns.  That at every chance I got, I left. I ran. Fear this, I am leaving. I bet you all thought it was something else. So the thing I feared the most was standing still.  And if I stood still I had to face myself in the mirror every day and I would be forced to be honest about myself, my life, my relationships, my failures. So with this knowledge I had a choice. Do I want to continue doing the same thing? But life has proven to me that if you do the same thing you will always produce the same result. And you know what?  I chose to face my life, my fears, and I chose to stand still. To be honest with myself about my life and my choices and that was the best decision I have ever made in my life. Since then I have found martial arts founded trifecta martial arts with my best friend and business partner Aline. I found a life partner who supports the insanity of entrepreneurial life. And I am in the best place I have ever been in my life. Trifecta is the strongest reflection of who I am as a person because it was founded upon the belief that martial arts like life is a journey. All journeys it is about self-discovery. Sure you don't always make the right turns but that's okay. Your journey might be different from somebody else's and that's okay too. Might be longer or shorter and that's fine. And if you realize you're on the wrong path take some time. Stand still. Retrace your steps and if you know you've always been turning left at that junction, turn right. You know, just try it. My point is don't fear it.  Take a chance on life, on you. Even if it takes more than one chance. Anyone have any questions for me? You're thinking of your puppy? Puppy is growing a lot bigger and fatter and older now. We're waiting for that. Alright. How do you merge the two things of moving ahead trying something new not being scared of something new whilst not running? Because if the pattern is running but then how do you differentiate? I'm running away from or I'm running toward something that I want? Every time I'm scared I think back to the time when I went wakeboarding. And I was trying a trick and I was coming in and every time I get that jump I would let go of the handle and I would land and I would land it. And I don't know if you've lived in Singapore long enough to know the term Alian. Yeah, okay. So it's a really brass lady and the lady who was my instructor, my wakeboarding instructor who drove the boat, she is that Alian, the brass lady who stopped the boat with a cigarette in her mouth. Grace up. Okay. Don't always show the handle. You can do it. You see many times you landed right?  Don't care. Hoi si ah.  Hoi si ah.  Every single time I'm actually scared of doing something I think back to that time and I know I can do it. It's just whether or not I can believe in it. I hope that answers your question. It totally says it. Thank you. Where's the martial arts coming from? Is there a reason in the storyline or? Well, martial arts came when the bedside table came hurtling at me and then spent the whole night crying and felt, oh my god, I didn't know how to defend myself then I went to learn martial arts and along the way picked up another martial arts as well. Yeah. Yes. What's the trifecta that you got? Trifecta's got Taekwondo, Muay Thai and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. And you know Muay Thai and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu I don't do Taekwondo. Are you still doing design? Yeah, I'm still doing design on and off, mostly for trifecta. Do you enjoy that now? Sorry? Do you enjoy design now? No, I still hate it. Every time Aline asks me, oh Grace, can I have a new t-shirt? No! Can you create a fire? No! Why do you hate design? I think it was something that came naturally to me but sometimes you don't appreciate the things that come naturally to you. What's the name of the puppy? Bruno. Bruno. He doesn't look like a Bruno but he's a Bruno. No, that was my ammo. Any sign of trouble I would turn and run because I was too scared to face it. Many times I realised that I liked this version of myself best. Oh my god, the most beautiful sentence ever. Yeah, every time I ran away I would create a new version of myself, create a new version of my life and this is the version I like the best and everything up to this point created this version of me so I'm happy with that. Where's your adrenaline coming now from? If you're not going somewhere else and really starting all the time where's your adrenaline coming from? My business keeps me busy and my adrenaline comes from watching my students grow every day changing lives one at a time.  After I gave him his first class I remember telling Anin oh my god, I don't want to do that again. And now he's blossomed into this young man who competes in Brazilian jujitsu and for the first three months I didn't know how he sounded like because he was just like, hi Nathaniel. How are you Nathaniel? Do you understand Nathaniel? And he was so shy, so painfully shy and now he's got friends at the gym he's blossomed you know, he's got so much self-confidence, has conversations with you and I'm proud that something I did helped this. Alright, thank you everybody, good night.