The Non-Facebook Post #53

I love how science and poetry can together explain away all that perplexes the human mind and ails the human heart. So, what I’m experiencing currently, all of my emotions at this time, are perfectly normal. They've been experienced by members of 170 societies worldwide, and for millennia. More than 95% of  anthropologist Helen Fisher’s interviewees in her TED talk The Brain in Love share what I have been through. She asked them two critical questions and the unanimous idea that came through was, “almost nobody gets out of love alive!” Yeah!

It’s reassuring to know that for once in my life I've not gone off the beaten track. Like everyone else on this planet, I've been through a rite of passage that “we all go through” as one of my favourite professors, Dr. Jay Gillette, told me. Currently, three areas of my brain are active and producing sensations that make for the tumultuous and obsessive time that marks this phase of a person’s life. 

So, the A10 cells of my brain’s Ventral Tegmental region are producing and spreading all this dopamine which has gotten me super-focused in the two months since this life-phase began. It’s the brain’s reward center that’s associated with energy and motivation and wanting, and sees heightened activity when you’re deeply in love and when you face rejection. That’s perfectly normal there then. Thanks VTA. Ever since you kicked in I've begun challenging myself to broaden my horizons and grow as a person. The second area of my brain that’s active right now is the Nucleus Accumbens, a region that calculates risks, gains and losses. This means that my brain has been doing all these computations about all that I risked and the result that followed. The third area of my brain that’s active and probably working in overdrive is associated with emotions of deep attachment.

Every time I find myself drowning in a sea of feelings, I know that the chemicals in my brain and my neurological processes are making me feel what I do. It helps! It’s not you, at least!

Helen Fisher also explains how romantic love is the biggest addiction out there - it's a drive more than a series of emotions - and how it displays all three characteristics of an addiction. There’s tolerance (wanting more), withdrawal and relapse. All of this apparently also makes you focus on the one you chose (through your selective proceptivity), crave, obsess, distort reality and take risks. Hey! All humans do this, and all animals practice Animal Favouritism – it’s normal!

And then there’s the glorious poetry that Fisher intersperses in her talk. The poets knew their science! I resonate with all the poets, especially Emily Dickinson - "parting is all we need to know of hell." Now, I wonder if some dramatic Bollywood kitsch will fit in here too to explain human mind’s perceptions of all that one encounters in a life lived.

‘Teri mehfil mein kismet aazma kar hum bhi dekhenge…

Kisike ishq mein duniya lutaa kar hum bhi dekhenge!’

The Non-Facebook Post #52

Animal favouritism. Selective proceptivity.

The Non-Facebook Post #51

It's my two-month anniversary, woohooooooooo!

Two months of challenging myself and changing myself because 'what doesn't challenge you will not change you.' Two months of sweating it out and 'being sore today instead of sorry tomorrow' and 'trying and failing, not failing to try.'

Well, all of those quotes are Ball State's Rec Center's motivational communication looping on display screens outside fitness classes.

And, it's my two month anniversary since I began exercising regularly! YAY!

I love weight training, and piloxing, and pilates, and yoga, and zumba. Although I still find that cardio is tough for me. It's gets my breath up too much which I have begun to dislike. But, I'll learn to work with it...yet (Carol Dweck's "growth mindset").

Challenging yourself, and stepping out of your comfort zone, even if it is by an inch, is awesome. You don't have to necessarily make great big leaps, a small tiny step outside of what you've done before is enough - because it's aligned with your unique abilities and capability. "You do you."
That's what my yoga instructor Allie says, and how beautifully it sums up the idea of exploring beyond your habits and routine in ways that are tailored for you.

Also, thanks Kerouac!  "If you don't say what you want, what is the sense of writing?" Lol!

The Non-Facebook Post #50

I want my Mommy.

The Non-Facebook Post #49

'...Tum kyun chale aate ho,
Har roz in khwaabon mein,
Chupke se aabhi jaao,
Ek din meri baahon mein...'

Sometimes you just have to get the cheesy out of the system!
Cheesy yet fun, and hard to admit, but sincere as well.

The Non-Facebook Post #48

From a HONY post dated 26 March 2015,

"I want to be a ballerina."
"What's the best part about being a ballerina?"
"Dancing."
"What's the hardest part about being a ballerina?"
"Dancing in front of people."

A commenter's take on that post,

"Translates to real world: what's the best thing about life? Being yourself. What's the hardest thing about life? Being yourself in front of people."
- LewieCharles Tran

The Non-Facebook Post #47

From Carol Dweck's TED talk The Power of Believing that You Can Improve

"...if you get a failing grade, you think, I'm nothing, I'm nowhere. But if you get the grade "Not Yet"you understand that you're on a learning curve. It gives you a path into the future."

"...the growth mindset, the idea that abilities can be developed."

"Here are some things we can do. First of all, we can praise wisely, not praising intelligence or talent. That has failed. Don't do that anymore. But praising the process that kids engage in: their effort, their strategies, their focus, their perseverance, their improvement."

"Just the words "yet" or "not yet," we're finding, give kids greater confidence, give them a path into the future that creates greater persistence. And we can actually change students' mindsets."

" ... every time they push out of their comfort zone to learn something new and difficult, the neurons in their brain can form new, stronger connections, and over time they can get smarter."

"This happened because the meaning of effort and difficulty were transformed. Before, effort and difficulty made them feel dumb, made them feel like giving up, but now, effort and difficulty, that's when their neurons are making new connections, stronger connections. That's when they're getting smarter."

The Non-Facebook Post #46

Why does no one stick to speed limits while driving?!

Everyone's surging way ahead on roads, way past the allowed speeds.

The Non-Facebook Post #45

It was too good to be true, just too good!

"Oh serendipitous, serendipitous day! When you go get your driving license renewed and, by happy accident, are also well dressed enough to not have a deer-caught-in-headlights headshot clicked for your new license!"
February 4, 2015. 11:51 am.

Yeah! Which is why Fate cruelly conspires with Bureaucracy to turn events around so that you're in a position of having to redo all your paperwork for the license, and get another headshot clicked. And lo and behold! Now, the picture of you that's to be printed on your new (yet again) license is how it should be - the ritualistic, ugly 'deer caught in headlights' sorta image. 

Well anyway, here's hoping four times is a charm and I don't have to go through the whole rigmarole again, for something as simple as being able to renew my driving license. You, Bureaucracy, I'm talking to you!

The Non-Facebook Post #44

"I was wondering if I could get her signature here to show I stopped by to deliver but he wasn't here?"

"Her?!"

"She's not mine! She's a stray!"

All in a day's work!

The Non-Facebook Post #43

"Learning has to include an amount of failure, because failure is instructional..."

Diana Laufenberg, TED Talk "How to Learn? From Mistakes"

The Non-Facebook Post #42

I need a standing desk!
I want a standing desk at my workplace!

The Non-Facebook Post #41

It's the sort of start to your day when you wake up, quite dreamily, and plunge into daydreaming right away. Daydreaming so intense, that you are barely conscious of the ticking time that's silently exhorting you to be ready for yet another day at the workplace. But the daydreams, as you go through the motions of brushing your teeth, showering, all of that - well, there they are showing you the path to your life's dreams, once again.

'Accha sochne se accha hota hai.' You attract the kind of energy you radiate.

Miraculously though, your daydreaming doesn't interfere with the pace of you readying yourself for the day. In fact, it speeds up the process. There you are, lost in moments cooked up by your abstractions that are pure joy and pure happiness because that's how you're envisioning your future. And you have a song on your lips too as you let the hot shower and your warm reveries relax your slightly strained mind and body because you plodded on through the yesterday - you decided to move forward, even if it was just inching ahead. The tortoise-walk onwards, gathering speed to become a hectic busyness by the end of the day that unravels into a heavy, dreamy sleep and which slowly blossoms into a musing-filled morning - you can say it's a good life. 

The Non-Facebook Post #40

I love this life advice! (Thanks to my Mom for sharing that HuffPost article with me.)

And this - "Be kind. Always and no matter what."

The Non-Facebook Post #39

Oh, come on! It's snowing!
Well, this was yesterday. It was a gloomy weather forecast showing snow on the radar. But you know how it is sometimes when you don't want to believe something even in the face of facts and evidence? So, I drive in to the Honda showroom to get my car serviced in a cold, cloudy and windy atmosphere. I spend about two and a half hours dozing out my wait with Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse's hefty tome in my hand, my finger bookmarking the page I was reading where I gave in to the waves of sleep washing over me. Mercifully, I managed to wake up before the Service Agent walked in to tell me that the car was finally serviced. I walk out from the waiting lounge to his desk area to clear my dues only to get a glimpse of a white world from the large automatic glass door that lets cars into the service center. That's when I exclaimed, in amused exasperation. The Service Agent had this to add, "yeah Indiana weather is great that way in setting up the party mood!" And sprinkling salt on a fresh wound he responds to my statement of having fallen asleep instead of reading, "you didn't go around the back of the waiting lounge and check out the showroom? It's really cool. There're free cookies."
Oh, come on! Free cookies that I miss!

(This is today's delightful temperature.)

The Non-Facebook Post #38

"You have to combine business needs with technical expertise, and the people who are interested in both areas often come up with the most creative solutions."

 - A.J.Shankar, CEO, Everlaw, Inc.

The Non-Facebook Post #37

So it comes to pass that you and you alone have to bear your cross. You're in the midst of milling crowds, yet you're alone. You see supportive faces and hear encouraging words, but it doesn't help because what you have to face, is all alone, all by yourself. You begin to look inward then, to find strength in a dignity that will carry you through the fire. You're scared - but they say, the bravest are those that persist through, even as they feel the fear deep down to their bones.
Fighting, sometimes, is not so much a motivationally-charged progress as it is a quiet, sombre trudge onwards.

The Non-Facebook Post #36

"Har cheez mein masl-e-hat-e khudaavandi hai."

The Non-Facebook Post #35

Here's clutching at more of those ephemeral wisps of thought - ephemeral to me and my 'pea' brain at least. 'Do unto others as you would have done unto you'. This is an idea that has been repeatedly coming back to me these past few days. And it's tying in with ideas of being empathetic to people you meet, of being kind, non-judgmental, and being good and doing good. Because isn't that how most of us would like to be treated? So, the first step then becomes treating other people in the way we desire being treated.
In some situations though, it's just accepting the behaviour of other people by putting yourself in their shoes and trying to understand why they're reacting the way they're reacting. Maybe, if we were walking in their shoes, our reactions would be similar too. Well, so, what this is leading to is shifting the focus from yourself, and putting the focus on others. Or is it really? At some level, isn't this whole exercise of focusing outside of oneself a way of trying to protect yourself from getting hurt? A manner of cocooning yourself?

Ok, other threads of thought - to be that person who lights up the room with contagious, uplifting, elevating positivism and brilliant smile. Because, 'your vibe attracts your tribe.'

The Non-Facebook Post #34

Sometimes, you get caught up in everyday busyness and everyday worries to momentarily forget the one thing you've been waiting for - so eagerly, so enthusiastically. 

Today is my cousin's wedding. Or wait, her wedding just concluded a few hours ago, across the ocean, in India. But still, it's today - the 20th. Ruhi, my cousin, is the sweetest, warmest, kindest person you can ever, ever, ever hope to meet. Her smile is so innocent, yet so bright, it lights up the room. She's humble and simple in ways that want to make you get your feet back on the ground with humility. 

It has always been my dream, since we played together as little kids, to attend her wedding. And celebrate in such joyous jubilation as you would with a close family member's moment of happiness. She's my cousin, like a sister, and I have always wanted to participate in her Mehendi and Manje ki Rasam and Joote Chupaane ki Rasam and all the other glorious rasams that are a part of Indian Hyderabadi weddings. To sing, and dance, and shout out from the rooftops that my lovely cousin is now going to begin one of the best phases of her life.

Ruhi, the best laid plans of mice and men...well, they come to naught. There you are, far away, and here I am, with only thoughts and memories of our times together running through my head today.

This is my sincerest wish for you. I hope and pray that you find the happiness of the world in the life you're about to embark on. I hope you keep smiling, ever brighter, and keep flooding people's  lives with your warmth, as you always do. I hope you and your chosen one have the best of health, always. I hope you get everything you desire. 

God bless you, always, and congratulations :)

The Non-Facebook Post #33

Looks like bureaucracy follows me everywhere.
All the way from India to here.
Ugh.

The Non-Facebook Post #32

"The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is the little Extra!"

A little encouragement from warm colleagues at work. Yay!

The Non-Facebook Post #31

Sometimes, the things that you dread the most turn out to be not so dreadful afterall. 

The Non-Facebook Post #30

"Beat the crowds."
That's the way to do it!

The Non-Facebook Post #29

Overhead cabinets - the ones you use on a daily basis in your kitchen or your room or workplace. The thing with them is, you're never conscious of accidentally dropping something from in there while you're trying to retrieve or store stuff. But, that very same cabinet, place it over your water closet, toilet, commode, what have you - as an overhead bathroom cabinet - and bam! That's the perfect recipe to suddenly become so acutely conscious of accidentally dropping the lens case you stored in there right down into that toilet, that it happens!

Murphy, you!

The Non-Facebook Post #28

It's one of the most gorgeous sights to watch dawn breaking. Deep purple skies overhead fading to lighter blue hues far ahead in the distance, streaked with large sweeping brushstrokes of smoky grey clouds low at the horizon. And a lightly bright, golden new morning sun trying to shine through slits of grey-blue swathes, inching slowly across the horizon, spreading luminescence wider with every passing moment.

The Non-Facebook Post #27

The Sibling Diaries

The Dumbledore Sibling: You're able to make out who's an Apple person and who's an Android person.
The Harry Potter Sibling: Yeah
The Dumbledore Sibling: Apa is an Apple person, I am an Apple person. You are an Android person
The Harry Potter Sibling: Apple people are  a cut above the rest.

The Mrs. Norris Sibling: Ok fine. At least I'm Open Source.

The Non-Facebook Post #26

So, my Mom shared an intimate piece of knowledge about her yesterday. One of her wishes as a child, one of the desires she longed for, was to "have a library full of books and a bag full of chocolates." She wanted to be able to pull out any book she wanted, from her library, and read away.
This tiny bit of information about her is important to me. She's not too much of a sharer of herself and her personality. She's quiet, like me. But unlike me, she rarely speaks about herself - the real actual her, non-coloured by the opinions of her parents and influencers in deciding her likes and dislikes. That is why everytime I come across glimpses of the real her, they become very precious to me.
A library full of books to get lost in, and a bag full of chocolates to indulge to satisfaction.

Every person deserves to have their dreams come true.

The Non-Facebook Post #25

All right, Crazy-Busy Week, bring it on!
Let's see what you've got!

The Non-Facebook Post #24

The post that celebrates your 'pea-brainism' as you laugh hilariously in the realization that you titled two of your blog posts "The Non-Facebook Post #14."

It's not me if I don't mess up!

The Non-Facebook Post #23

'Dare to be yourself.' - André Gide

The Non-Facebook Post #22

The barrage of emails that keep hitting you, even on a Friday!
Aaaaargh!
Hello, Work Life!

It's that constant increase in numbers that you see on the counter of your email icon every time you swipe into your smartphone. And you constantly swipe into your smartphone because of the little blinking blue light, alerting you to new messages - more and more of 'em just streaming in. 

The Non-Facebook Post #21

I want to write my heart out!
I want to write and write and write.
It's the only raahat.
'Chainn ek pal nahin, aur koi hal nahin...'

The Non-Facebook Post #20

Indiana weather can turn on a dime. Foggy in the morning, warm and cheery in the afternoon, cold and windy in the evening.
Well, at least there's someone else out there like me!

The Non-Facebook Post #19

Rilke says, "live the questions now."
The question though is, "what is the question that I am trying to live with now?"

What is it that remains unsolved in my heart?

The Non-Facebook Post #18

Oh, how every word of this interview rings true!

http://www.parentous.com/2015/03/09/an-interview-with-natasha-badhwar/

I identify with so much, although I'm not yet at the parenting stage, and I don't think it's for me at this point in life. But still, the entire interview makes sense. Just plain, simple, unpretentious, common sense.

"Sharing is caring" indeed and what a wonderful thought that each of our stories are valuable, to be shared, celebrated and validated - all our stories are "for listening and identifying with", that we are "important" and that we should "talk about ourselves." Well, yes, this may touch on narcissism or vanity, but you never know how your story is maybe helping another cope through his phase of life - by either agreeing or disagreeing with it. Identifying with a story - identifying with your story.

And oh, talk about the many life inspirations, the people who become your inspirations - the ones that bring out the best in you. Then there's also the best brought out in you when you crash and burn and reinvent yourself - " I wouldn't have picked myself up and created a new me if I hadn't crashed so hard." Becoming the best - soaring to a higher you through inspiration or because of hitting the ground hard in failure - diametric, poetic, effective. But, this is our greatest strength, the ability to get back up after falling, and get back up, better - "to recover, survive and flourish."

Here's also channeling all my restlessness and pensive gloom, and heartache into my writing as I have channeled my "extreme sense of joy, disdain and anger into my writing" earlier. Because, if you can't keep the innocence of a child within you, and delight at the world with a childish joy, what sense is living? To light up your surroundings with your enthusiasm about the little things in life, to bloom brighter than happy yellow sunflowers because "your vibe attracts your tribe." Ideas from a March 9, 2015, HONY photograph.

Badhwar hits the nail on the head in that interview describing innocence as "an intrinsic human quality" that's very "precious and real".

This beautiful article on writing published in The New Yorker lifts my heart and reaffirms much that I believe in. That diversity - of people, their beliefs, backgrounds, roots, orientations - enriches life. "The worst mistake anyone can make is to perceive anyone else as lesser." And writing is about baring your soul, or getting an uninhibited look into another's soul. It's about sharing your experiences, "cloaking experiences" in words and making experiences that occur in "unsayable spaces" tangible. The author quotes Rilke's advice to writers penned in his Letter to a Young Poet. I think I've just found my next favourite writer. This article too champions keeping the innocence of youth in you which sometimes gets jaded by experiences, as you go father in life. These stories and experiences are then, to be shared with a writing that is "heartfelt, quiet, humble, sincere; and use to express yourself the things that surround you."

I love that I've found pieces of writing that resonate with me. Thank God for writers.

The Non-Facebook Post #17

Sometimes, it's vital to have a gallery to play to. The performer in you helps keep you, the person, in top form.
It's vanity, yes, but vanity that strangely keeps your skills sharp.

In Badhwar's words (again), "it nourishes me and gives a platform to my inner performer."

The Non-Facebook Post #16

Taco Bell's 'Fire' sauce - There was a time when this made you scoff derisively, "that's called hot?"

Taco Bell's 'Fire' sauce - Today, it's living up to its name and setting your mouth on fire!

Oh, how the tides change indeed!
Yup, fully transformed tropical-to-continental palette!

The Non-Facebook Post #15

This morning started out in a gorgeous haze of steel grey fog, blending in with a pale blue sky and blurring the world in smoke-veiled forms. Still lit street lamps glowed like orange orbs, the shafts of light they throw being swallowed by the surrounding smoky fuzz. The best sights were across large expanses of vacant land, like the parking lot and school playground. In the parking lot, double globes of perfectly spherical radiance rhythmically rose through thick white misty clouds on tall black metal stems. Bare tree branches peeked through the fog every here and there, seemingly floating, trunk-less.
This afternoon is yet another exercise in beauty. Soft yellow sun has dispelled the morning's brooding fog. It's a warm, ponderous atmosphere of lazy sunlight and people and cars waking up to newly frenzied activity from this morning's dullness.
In the midst of all the crowds, the people, everyone's battling their own struggles - you are made privy to challenges your friends, the faces in the crowds, the driver driving your shuttle that morning, are contending with. The serene and already thoughtful afternoon is now laced with deeper meditations into the way the tides turn, the manner in which life rolls. From your deep musing comes the one thought, again and again, that the people you value in your life may never have to go through such ebbs. That the sun comes out after the fog for everyone.

The Non-Facebook Post #14

So, turns out if you follow a regulated, disciplined, morning-lark lifestlye, DST's end in March can be brutal to adjust to, absolutely brutal.

The late-night owl 'sleeping late but waking up early to rush to work anyway' sort of schedule lets you adapt to the end of DST far easier.

The Non-Facebook Post #14

Can't-feel-your-legs,-gluts-and-abs kinda workout.

The Non-Facebook Post #13

Ball State license plate, woohooooooo!
Alma mater love, alma mater pride!

The Non-Facebook Post #12

I love Spring evenings! Like today's. Where the sun is low in the horizon and washing the landscape in a soft radiant orange. That great big ball of luminescence is  visible through tree branches that are waiting to come alive, green.
You've written about this mellow golden-yellow twitlight countless times, and yet you feel you can write about it every time the world transforms into a swathe of sunset hues - dance in it, rejoice in the beauty enveloping you, get lost in your thoughts in the serene calmness that descends with the atmosphere that's set up and wish dream with the promise of a brighter season ahead.

The Non-Facebook Post #11

"Don't avoid the burn. Feel the burn." - my pilates instructor in exercise class this evening.  That's true for life as well. Feel the burn, go through it, wait for the cold harsh winter to melt into a sunny promising spring. 

The Non-Facebook Post #10

It's a brave new WARM world! And, I've stepped out, boldly once again, without at least 4 layers of my 7-layered winter clothing!
It's Spring!

But here's trying to grasp at some more elusive thought threads as they flit through my mind and threaten to vanish like wisps of smoke dissolving into nothingness.

Experiencing seasons from inside of a car. Experiencing temporality through the lens of owning and driving a vehicle. 

Last Spring brought me the liberating feeling of being able to walk out to the laundry room in my apartment complex without first armouring myself in winter gear. This Spring, it's liberating to not have my fingers freeze to numbness while I'm holding the gas nozzle and refuellling my car. Winter afternoons made for perfect driving visibility - no bright glare reflecting off of windscreens and asphalt,  not so dark that headlights would not be able to handle. Spring days come with bright sun shining off of every surface it can, blinding you a bit as you try to drive in the warm glow.

The Non-Facebook Post #9

The 'I' post.

I have emotional fortitude.
I have confidence in me and emotional fortitude.
I have things to do, places to go, dreams to achieve.
I have to be at the top of my game.
I have to be the smartest version of my pea-brain self.
I have miles to go before I sleep.

I will have my dreams.

The Non-Facebook Post #8

Yes, yes, yes!

I did it! I drove a co-passenger, for the first time -  a milestone for how far I've come from being a scaredy-cat driver to now being confident enough to safely drive another human being!

And,

I also was able to accomplish the complex task of talking WHILE driving! And got complimented for it too! But now, I completely understand all the people who politely tried to excuse themselves from talking because they found it hard to both together and wanted to concentrate on driving. I find that it's a bit tougher to focus on what the other person is saying when there's a higher volume of traffic on the roads you're driving on. I also discovered that it's a lot easier to drive if you're the one doing the talking - makes focussing on both tasks easier (it makes you a feel a bit powerful too, for some reason, or the one in control, in the 'driver's seat').

Here's to learning, some more! Here's to growing, some more! Here's to becoming the best version of you!

The Non-Facebook Post #7

"So many times I've heard perfectly capable people say: "I don't really know what to do with my life. I'm not really good at anything."

Nobody's ever accomplished anything by doing what they're good at. Accomplishments come from doing what you're bad at-- over, and over, and over again.

Brandon Stanton, Humans of New York, June 29 2012.

The Non-Facebook Post #6

This calm, peaceful Saturday morning brings me a sombre mood and answers and revelations. What can heal a broken heart? Hurt. "If you don't let it hurt, how will it heal?" This line is also from Natasha Badhwar, one of my biggest thought influencers.
Also, you know you've finally made the transition from being a tropical girl to a temperate-zoned person when you feel like Spring in thirty-one degree Fahrenheit temperatures and saunter outside boldly without your gloves and usual winter paraphernalia (and even manage to drive your car without turning on the heat, even if it was for just a quarter mile). The once bland foods of the land you now call home begin to taste delicious. You finally understand the agony of a person who chokes on flaming-spice food, the 'pachadi' from your homeland is way too hot for your now continental palette.
Badhwar also said the key to writing is to "imagine all the people who think your writing sucks" and then write with the realization that they are "not reading you."
And this here post is another example of my rambling thoughts. But it floats my boat, so hey.

The Non-Facebook Post #5

'Dehleez pe mere dil ki, jo rakhe hai tune kadam...
...aasmaan mila zameen ko meri...'

The Non-Facebook Post #4

"Writing has created a space for me to express innocence. No other world has any use for it."  - Natasha Badhwar.
And so, here I am, writing, rambling, wandering through a hundred thousand thoughts that fill my mind and create a joyous bustling cacophony, exploring and sorting through them, and understanding myself better.
At the moment I'm reading Kerouac. He says a writer should imitate the writing style of the greats until he growns into his own. This phase of my writing has a definite Kerouac influence - galloping from word to word, thought to thought, in long-winded sentences.
It's also a life-phase where, like him, I'm "thrashing in a thousand twenty-one-year-old agonies" not "at the horror of this world" but at the rejections and disenchantments of my life. Precious trifle compared to him, and yes, twenty one years in age too. No matter if numerical ages match here. My mind, and the life experiences I'm having, are all of twenty one.
Sauntering farther in my field of thoughts, Kerouac lampoons that one cannot just run off a broken leg to have it heal. Well, maybe you can't just unbreak a heart too.
This, all of this, sets the tone of this period of my life. But here's another wonderful line by a poet that Badhwar quoted recently - "Be joyful, though you have considered the facts." An apt closing.

The Non-Facebook Post #3

Every evening comes to you painted in a new colour, a new tone.

This evening, you catch glimpses of golden-orange luminescence through glass doors, hitting the rust-brick building far ahead; a light yellow and pale blue-gray sky peeks through a jungle of bare tree branches, fragmented; a soft twilight drops down from the skies meeting a warm orange glow of the setting sun lifting up from the earth. Mixing with it all are streetlamps and car lights - that heady mix of dusk and light heralding bright thoughts, calling you back to your dreams.  

The Non-Facebook Post #2

Binary is base two and decimal is base ten in place value.
Bam! Eureka, and the fog clears!

The Non-Facebook Post #1

Sticking to deadlines made by others is tough. Abiding by deadlines you make for yourself is the toughest.

The 'non-Facebook updates' blog posts

Turns out I wade a little longer in that murky pool that resides between academic life and professional-career life. I linger on mid-ground, having left the bank on the school-student side, a bit emotional, a bit reluctant, to cut the umbilical cord and let go to reach the other bank. And here's also my delving into a Kerouac-style memoir writing, like the Vanity of Duluoz, but at an age far younger than his. But pah, what is age if just another metric, and it's how you choose to define that metric. So, our numerical ages may not be the same, but I'm at the same age and place, in my mind, that he was at. Wait, go back, clutch that thread of thought or put it down in concrete writing here before it vanishes in a puff of forgetfulness, Dumbledore's silver thread strands stored in that glittery thought pool.
Why is it so hard for me to transition from one life phase to the other? Someone summed this up succinctly on a social media post - 'it's because leaving a life phase means having to say goodbye. Goodbye to not only the people and the places that were a part of your life but also saying goodbye to a part of you - that person that you are at this point in your life.' Because you get attached, and nostalgic. And the emptiness that you see coming, from letting go, seems irreplaceable and 'unfillable'. Or so it seems at the time.
There's a whole lot of wisdom out there on letting go, to make room for new and wonderful experiences to walk in. I think everyone lets go in due time - in good time. Yeah, it took me longer, but I feel like I'm ready. I'm ready to step into the new world opening up ahead of me.