Dear reader, good morning! It’s wonderful to be back in your inbox and your Sunday.

Bengaluru has been grey, cold, and wet for much of the week, even after we got handed the relatively less-intense effects of the Northeast Monsoon that’s been lashing our neighbouring state of Tamil Nadu.

The near-daily rain has left all the street dogs wet, sad, and sullen, including Bribo and Svelty (yup, those are the names I’ve given the son-mama indie duo who often feature in these newsletters).

I came back from vacation to a backlog of pending work and emails. As if dealing with that wasn’t enough, we also took up some repainting work at home. So, I’m writing this from the middle of a sofa piled on the left side with things moved from a different room and a curled up Gabru on the right.

There are few things as frustrating as your home being taken over by strangers coming in or going out at will, your possessions randomly scattered, your personal spaces destroyed. You become a willing-unwilling prisoner who can’t leave and can’t complain.

A younger me would be severely stressed out by now. But as I’ve grown older, I’ve learnt to “pre-accept” disruptions by telling myself that there is nothing I can do about them except get through to the other side.

Email inboxes will get down to zero (FWIW, I had achieved “inbox zero” the day before leaving for vacation). The walls will get done. Rooms will go back to being warm and personal.

I can either get there stressed, or calm.

But right now, I’m frustrated. Which is what I want to talk about today.

Here’s everything we have for you in this edition of First Principles:

1. Treasure your frustration
2. A shot at art 📸
3. Solitude 📚
4. Interesting reads 🔖

“Do you ever find yourself in that moment of exhaustion, tiredness, or sleepiness where you suddenly feel like you have extraordinary clarity about things? It could be about relationships or work, but in that liminal state of being completely worn out, there’s this unusual degree of certainty and clarity,” said a good friend to me recently.