"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.
Friday, 6 March 2015
The Non-Facebook Post #4
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.
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.
Thursday, 5 March 2015
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.
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.
Wednesday, 7 January 2015
A First, and One of the Bests
Well.
Yeah, this blog post begins with a "well..." It's about that feeling, you know THAT feeling - that intangibility that's called love, but which I'm going to call "like". I have no idea what "love" is and, somehow, using that word makes me feel even more vulnerable than what this intimate piece of writing anyway makes me feel.
It's that feeling when you like someone. When you really, really like someone.
Like a lot of other posts in my blog documenting "firsts", this is a first for me too. The honesty with which I have this feeling, and the intensity, and a liberating uplifting strength that I'm able to derive from it - whatever be the decision of the object of my "like" - is my first.
This first experience has had an effect on me that I did not quite anticipate. I find myself reading up literature on subjects related to "liking someone" as they show up in my social media newsfeed when all I would have done earlier was ignore and scroll over. It's surprising to me but also a bit beautiful how I find myself relating to thoughts expressed by noted people from various walks of life on that feeling - "like".
There's this one particular piece of literature I came across that resonates most closely with what I feel. It's a letter from John Steinbeck to his son trying to pick apart and put together what "love" is and what to do when you have such feelings for another. I find that my feelings of "like" are inspiring me to be a better person, they're bringing about this "outpouring of everything good in you", as Steinbeck put it. And I figure that's partly because I want to "live up" to the excellence in character portrayed by the person I like. Steinbeck advised his son to "try to live up to it" - to his son's feelings of affection for the person he adored.
This is coming from a recognition of another person as "unique and valuable" and makes you want to respect that person and their choices and decisions. I love how Steinbeck's letter to his son so eloquently expresses what takes me a lot of courage to put down in this post. And I have to laugh at this polarity - writing down so openly, more than I have ever dared before - halting, hesitating with shyness but also wanting to shout out from the rooftops and letting the world know! I know that this "like" is almost releasing in me "strength and courage" and I hope a lot of "goodness" and "wisdom" too as Steinbeck described happens with a love that's not focused around self-interest or self-importance.
I am entitled to my feelings and likes and dislikes and so is the person I like - and I respect that. Neither of our feelings become any less "valuable" or "good" - they are ours, they belong to each of us and so are valid. Steinbeck told his son that "it sometimes happens that what you feel is not returned for one reason or another - but that does not make your feeling any less valuable". And neither does it discredit the object of your affection if they have a "like" that's different from yours and is not you.
Brain Pickings described this Steinbeck letter as reflecting "tenderness, optimism, timelessness and sagacity" that come when you like someone in ways that uplift you and make you want to be a better person. Echoing those sentiments, I think I'll close out this post with what the father had to say to his lovestruck son on what to do about such feelings - "glory in it for one thing and be very glad and grateful for it...And don't worry about losing. If it is right, it happens..."
Yeah, this blog post begins with a "well..." It's about that feeling, you know THAT feeling - that intangibility that's called love, but which I'm going to call "like". I have no idea what "love" is and, somehow, using that word makes me feel even more vulnerable than what this intimate piece of writing anyway makes me feel.
It's that feeling when you like someone. When you really, really like someone.
Like a lot of other posts in my blog documenting "firsts", this is a first for me too. The honesty with which I have this feeling, and the intensity, and a liberating uplifting strength that I'm able to derive from it - whatever be the decision of the object of my "like" - is my first.
This first experience has had an effect on me that I did not quite anticipate. I find myself reading up literature on subjects related to "liking someone" as they show up in my social media newsfeed when all I would have done earlier was ignore and scroll over. It's surprising to me but also a bit beautiful how I find myself relating to thoughts expressed by noted people from various walks of life on that feeling - "like".
There's this one particular piece of literature I came across that resonates most closely with what I feel. It's a letter from John Steinbeck to his son trying to pick apart and put together what "love" is and what to do when you have such feelings for another. I find that my feelings of "like" are inspiring me to be a better person, they're bringing about this "outpouring of everything good in you", as Steinbeck put it. And I figure that's partly because I want to "live up" to the excellence in character portrayed by the person I like. Steinbeck advised his son to "try to live up to it" - to his son's feelings of affection for the person he adored.
This is coming from a recognition of another person as "unique and valuable" and makes you want to respect that person and their choices and decisions. I love how Steinbeck's letter to his son so eloquently expresses what takes me a lot of courage to put down in this post. And I have to laugh at this polarity - writing down so openly, more than I have ever dared before - halting, hesitating with shyness but also wanting to shout out from the rooftops and letting the world know! I know that this "like" is almost releasing in me "strength and courage" and I hope a lot of "goodness" and "wisdom" too as Steinbeck described happens with a love that's not focused around self-interest or self-importance.
I am entitled to my feelings and likes and dislikes and so is the person I like - and I respect that. Neither of our feelings become any less "valuable" or "good" - they are ours, they belong to each of us and so are valid. Steinbeck told his son that "it sometimes happens that what you feel is not returned for one reason or another - but that does not make your feeling any less valuable". And neither does it discredit the object of your affection if they have a "like" that's different from yours and is not you.
Brain Pickings described this Steinbeck letter as reflecting "tenderness, optimism, timelessness and sagacity" that come when you like someone in ways that uplift you and make you want to be a better person. Echoing those sentiments, I think I'll close out this post with what the father had to say to his lovestruck son on what to do about such feelings - "glory in it for one thing and be very glad and grateful for it...And don't worry about losing. If it is right, it happens..."
Wednesday, 2 July 2014
Of Glorious Sunsets, Gorgeous Evenings and Big Dreams
The road you walk curves gently, bringing into view a soft orange glow far away at the horizon that peeks through clumps of shaded dark-green foliage in the foreground. As you move closer, you discern branches of delicately-strung Cottonwood leaves hanging down ever so gracefully to meet the horizon's ground plane. The leaves quiver lightly with gusts of wind blowing every now and then. Their tips catch the faint sunset's brilliant peach-coloured radiance. Walking on, the drooping branches and gold-drenched leaves, dancing in the wind, lead your eye to a small grassy mound in the distance. A mellow setting sun emerges behind the hillock, bathing clouds around and ground below in glimmering gold-yellow dust.
You walk along, soaking in the iridescent evening. This is the road. The road leading you, steadily, to your dreams.
You walk along, soaking in the iridescent evening. This is the road. The road leading you, steadily, to your dreams.