Acknowledgements

I am grateful to all the people who have helped me along the way, including but not limited to:

  • My wife Sampada and two daughters Rasika and Ritu, who, for years, have suffered through my lengthy pontifications on all types of topics imaginable and always provided honest and meaningful feedback and encouragement,

  • To my relatives and friends who listened to my whole spiel, provided many helpful suggestions and made me feel that this was a worthwhile effort,

  • To the many friends who signed up for the mailing list and responded to my monthly updates with many suggestions and words of encouragement,

  • To the many readers of my blog who continue to give me the confidence to keep writing,

  • To my many teachers over the years who instilled the love of evidence and reason into me,

  • To the many scientists, philosophers and writers whose ideas I have enriched my thinking while writing the book (some of whom I have acknowledged in the book itself),

  • To the ancient and deeply wisdom-oriented culture of India where I grew up, and to the modern and free-thinking culture of the US where I flourished, and, ultimately,

  • To the "6CED" tendencies of this awesome universe we get to live in, which not only made all of this possible but actually made it happen, through me.

Credits:

  • The striking photo of the honey bee in the "The Whole Book in 5 Minutes" chapter is by Alexas_Fotos on Unsplash.

  • The cover page art consists of 3 parts:

    • In the foreground is a "Mindful Engineer" with a pen in one hand (symbolizing thinking / planning) and a spanner (symbolizing hands-on engineering). It was created using the Microsoft Copilot Image Creator and Designer.

    • The background image symbolizes the "Search for Meaning in the Living Local Universe". It was also created using the Microsoft Copilot Image Creator and Designer.

    • Further editing tweaks including adding the title / subtitle / author name was done using Microsoft PowerPoint.

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