Manana — Mayank KapoorEssays on dharma and how to live, on power and machines and the strange work of staying sane. Photographs from the same walks.https://mananablogs.com/en-gb© 2026 Mayank Kapoor. All rights reserved.What the Wanting Asks Forhttps://mananablogs.com/essays/what-the-wanting-asks-for/https://mananablogs.com/essays/what-the-wanting-asks-for/This summer I wanted a motorbike licence and a camera at the same time. Neither was a need. I stalled for three weeks on one and could not stop researching the other, and the difference between them turned out to be the only useful thing I have learned about desire in years.Wed, 29 Jul 2026 19:25:38 GMTDharma & Inner LifeMiddle Powers and the New Non-Alignmenthttps://mananablogs.com/essays/middle-powers-and-the-new-non-alignment/https://mananablogs.com/essays/middle-powers-and-the-new-non-alignment/India, the Gulf and ASEAN are not choosing sides. They are pricing both. Hedging has quietly become grand strategy, and the next two decades belong to whoever prices it best.Thu, 02 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTStatecraft & PowerA Second Brain That Argues Backhttps://mananablogs.com/essays/a-second-brain-that-argues-back/https://mananablogs.com/essays/a-second-brain-that-argues-back/A notes app stores what you said. The system worth building holds competing hypotheses about you, weighs the evidence and revises its beliefs. Memory as dialectic, not archive.Wed, 01 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTMachines & UsThe Householder's Dharmahttps://mananablogs.com/essays/the-householders-dharma/https://mananablogs.com/essays/the-householders-dharma/The renunciate gets all the press. The harder discipline belongs to the householder, who holds a career, a mortgage, two small sons and a mind that wants to build things, and must treat the whole arrangement as the path rather than the obstacle to it.Sun, 28 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTDharma & Inner LifeThe Psychology of the Long Gamehttps://mananablogs.com/essays/the-psychology-of-the-long-game/https://mananablogs.com/essays/the-psychology-of-the-long-game/Twenty year plans fail at year two because the self who writes the plan is never the self who must live it. Durable goals are the ones designed to survive their own author's revisions.Wed, 24 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTMind & BehaviourWalking as an Operating Systemhttps://mananablogs.com/essays/walking-as-an-operating-system/https://mananablogs.com/essays/walking-as-an-operating-system/The camera is an excuse. The walk is where the week's problems get reordered without my permission. I have learned to trust legs over lists.Sat, 20 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTArt of Living