MAN OF GLASS

It’s not good to have new thoughts

2022-08-25T16:49:31Z

That’s what you think.

Just follow this for a moment.

A lot of the thoughts you have in a day are the same as you did the day before. You think about the problems in your life, the people in your life, the things you have to do, and every one of those has an emotion attached to it.

Same thoughts lead to same choices, which lead to same behaviours, which lead to the same experiences, which lead to the same emotions, which lead to the same thoughts. It’s a loop.

You keep thinking the same thoughts, making the same choices, eventually stamping the pattern within you, all for the comfortable feeling of familiarity. In time, you become a subconscious program – not by choice, by nature.

By the time you reach your thirties, you have simply become a set of memorised behaviours, unconscious habits, automatic emotional responses, hardwired thoughts, beliefs, perceptions. When you feel that you have made the right decision, it might not be the right decision, but rather one which feels more familiar.

Adults spend so much time philosophising basic behaviour, wondering who they are, what they are, discovering the self, and struggling to be themselves.

A four-year-old child has no concern about being something other than themself. It is an alien concept for them to be something other than themselves; I am sure everyone as a child has at some point wondered if movies are real, if actors actually die in real life when they do so in a movie. It is an unnatural idea to be something you are not. To be in a play with yourself. It is learnt.

Going back to the loop: Our bodies respond to emotions. Stress, as an example, can be caused through a variety of emotions and will lead our bodies to degrade internally and externally.

So, if emotions can make us sick, and thoughts can trigger emotions, then thoughts alone can make us sick. If thoughts can make us sick, they can also make us better.

The point I’m makin’ is the mind is a powerful place
And what you feed it can affect you in a powerful way
It’s pretty cool, right? Yeah, but it’s not always safe
Just hang with me, this’ll only take a moment, okay?
Just think about it for a second, if you look at your face
Every day when you get up and think you’ll never be great
You’ll never be great, not because you’re not, but the hate
Will always find a way to cut you up and murder your faith (woo!)
The Search, NF

Subconsciously, you like the same kind of places, the same kind of people. It could be a home that reminds you of your childhood, it could be a potential partner who reminds you of a parent, it could be as simple as something unhealthy you eat just because you know what to expect. It might not be the best choice for you, your body, or your mind, but you will still be comfortable with the choice, because it will be familiar, in line with the pattern.

Your brain thinks it’s not good to have new thoughts.

Give it something new — feed it something new. Give it a little nudge.

It’s okay to live in a home that’s smaller than what you are used to, it might even be better. It’s okay to consider someone a potential partner, even if you didn’t think of them as such before. It’s okay to break pride and prejudices. It’s okay to have new thoughts.

Morphing possessions (and the sexiness thereof)

2022-07-19T21:51:18Z

A house, a car, a clock, a pen, a rubber duck, a piece of paper with words from a loved one, or a piece of paper with numbers and a signature from the finance minister.

They morph back and forth. Just as Jesus turned water into wine, you can turn a house into paper. Or just a number, in another number.

Capitalism lets you possess numbers. The more numbers you have, the more you value.

Is that not right?

Are you going to live with someone who possess nothing? It is a romanticised idea – to own nothing. To be free of all attachments, to be a monk. It often comes with the caveat of celibacy.

That’s not really a choice, is it?

What you possess defines your value. A kind hearted, loving, generous, considerate, sexy, homeless person will only ever be defined as a homeless person. If only this person possessed a home.

That’s not right. A lot is not right. You can’t be what you want to be, unless you have possessions that let you be.

That’s important. Possessions that let you be.

A house that is unliveable, a car that is undriveable, a hat that is unwearable, a paper that is unspendable, a number that is unreachable. A dream that is unattainable.

They don’t let you be, rather they sting you like a bee. They define memories.

But.

If possessions merely invoke our memories, do we possess them or do they possess us?

A slave, we are, to what we own. It is what limits us.

Owning too much. Owning too little. Owning just enough. A limit defines each.

Is the desire to own everything bad? It is portrayed as such, but wouldn’t it make sense? Wouldn’t it mean you would have no bounds, no limits, no end? Isn’t that humanity’s greatest desire? To possess the power of the sun, in the palm of your hand.

Is that crazy? Why do we need to tell ourselves stories akin to that of Icarus? In every culture, on every continent, for every era.

Why is owning everything evil and owning nothing noble?

Why is struggle admired, respected, praised, and even encouraged? Why is it attractive?

Perhaps, because it helps one possess something that is very difficult to possess otherwise.

Struggle blesses a person with pain, knowledge, and humility. In this way, to not own anything of value leads you into possessing something invaluable.

That is attractive. That is sexy. Until you have to pay the heating bill. Then it’s not.

An invaluable possession that doesn’t let you be.

Same writing style

2022-04-04T12:18:35Z

I am of the belief that, as you write your thoughts down about anything that matters to you, the words you pick are important.

Example: ‘cheap’ has a negative connotation, in that it makes the product seem inferior. Instead, use ‘cost-effective’, or ‘affordable’.

This is something folks into marketing, political speechwriting, or any message-conveying profession would understand. However, it’s also a game of cat and mouse. If your company’s marketing department uses the term ‘cost-effective’ to its benefit, it will be mimicked by your industry, and adjacent industries, without much thought. Once it is used by enough corporate-type people, the group of customers / users being targeted by such marketing will catch up to it.

As a consumer, you now understand that ‘affordable’ usually means ‘cheap’. The expectation conveyed by the word ‘affordable’ has changed over time, becoming the same as ‘cheap’. So, there will be another term, and eventually its meaning will wane as well. It is endless.

Or, for a slightly more relevant example in terms of current affairs, saying that “India is one of the few democratic nations that have not voted to censure Russia in the United Nations over its aggression towards Ukraine” implies that India’s actions are in favour of Russia.

If you are not already informed on India’s stance on global issues historically, or its geopolitical policies, or its history of wars and other political conflicts, both domestic and international, to you, it will promote the idea of ‘us versus them’ — that India does not support Europe and the US and is in the “Russian camp”.

Instead, saying that “India is one of the few democratic nations to have abstained from voting on resolutions against Russia in the United Nations over its aggression towards Ukraine” implies that India has chosen to not be on either side.

You may think that these two sentences say the same thing, and you would be right to think that, because they do to an extent. But, the latter excludes the word ‘not’ and ‘censure’; the former is editorialized to use these words and push the reader towards believing that India is ‘not’ in support of the resolutions against Russia. When, in fact, it has abstained — as in, India has opted to have no opinion on the matter of Russian aggression. It’s the tone and implication that differs, leaving you feeling differently about the subject.

The tone of a message and the choice of words make all the difference, especially when this message will be repeated to you several times by news reports across organisations over the next months. It won’t be noticed by most people, but it will stick in their subconscious.

AI will inevitably take over the simplistic content writing work that has been fueling an entire community of outsourced low-effort writers.

I realise that those are harsh words, but most content writing work is subpar at best and downright dangerous at worst. An article comparing the ’10 best blood pressure monitors’ is not focused on researching and reviewing blood pressure monitors — its author most likely lives in a developing nation and the closest they have been to a blood pressure monitor is at their local doctor’s “home clinic”.

Of course, I am generalising; it could also be a doctor who can attest to certain brands being better than others in quality, reliability, or whatever other relevant metric. However, my generalisation is based on probability. A doctor from a developing nation is less likely to be into writing content for random blogs on the internet. It is a profession that earns very well, in the context of a developing nation. Generally, people in developing nations also tend to have fewer hobbies.

That is enough of me justifying my generalisations. Some of it is anecdotal, some factual. I cannot bother myself to add references and citations, at least for the moment.

But, hold on to this thought of hating generalisations for the moment.

What slightly worries me is the advent of ‘assistive writing’. Tools like Grammarly were originally intended to help users improve their grammar. But, in the hands of big tech, everything can become dangerous.

Google recently announced a set of what they deem as improvements for their assistive writing feature, as not only will it provide fixes and suggestions to improve your grammar, but it will now also assist you with:

Word choice: More dynamic or contextually relevant wording
Active voice: Active rather than passive voice
Conciseness: More concise phrases
Inclusive language: More inclusive words or phrases
Word warnings: Reconsidering potentially inappropriate words

This is a dangerous slippery slope.

But we didn’t start slipping on this slope recently. It’s been a while; like, two years ago when GMail added a feature that Google likes to call ‘Smart Compose’. It finishes your sentences for you.

AI, at this moment, is capable of writing articles that only have to be reviewed briefly by a human. It hasn’t yet learned to thoroughly fact-check, but we will get there in a decade or two as well, probably less.

But, the fact that AI can ‘assist’ you with your tone and language for your next news report, your thesis, a note in your diary, or a text message to your significant other, can lead to a sort of paradigm where everybody writes… the same. Or, even more concerning — where everybody writes the way Google wants them to.

When I write, I try to use gender-neutral language. I try to use more common words, so my message is conveyed without the reader having to use a thesaurus. Consciously, I make these choices. Someone with different political, cultural, or moral leanings, would write differently.

Some might not even care about any of this and write whatever words that come to their mind. Google’s AI is for them — generalising their writing into something that is non-offensive and politically correct, but only according to whatever leanings the engineers at Google have.

I asked you to hold on to that hate for generalisations earlier, you may release it now.

In short, even if the next article you read is not written by an AI, be aware that its tone, language, and message could have been “assisted”, with tools produced by a big tech corporation that does not share your values, or rather more importantly, the author’s.

This post was assisted by Microsoft Editor.

Deep rooted fears

2022-03-31T10:10:37Z

Never underestimate someone’s deeply rooted fears, especially when you don’t understand the root.

Possible

2022-03-07T23:17:14Z

Is it possible for you, either now or perhaps sometime in the future, to just fly off? Just, fly off. You are sitting, and you fly away.

You say no.

Can you walk or roll away?

You say yes.

Why?

Why do you say that you can’t just fly off?

Most likely because, in your experience, you can’t just fly off. It just doesn’t happen. That is your life’s experience.

You use the experience from your past to determine what can or cannot happen in the future.

In other words, you have made up your mind: what has not happened in your life until now, can also never happen in the future.

This is your limit, and it holds you back.

What has not happened until now, can happen in the future.

It is in the human spirit. We have individually and collectively made the impossible possible.

It is not your role to think about what is possible and what is not possible. You just need to know what you really want.

If you say it’s not possible, you are also saying that you don’t want it.

All you have to do is strive for what you want.

A Blurry Vision

2022-03-03T07:54:43Z

I wish I were a train

2022-02-10T22:10:25Z

A train is fixed, it is determined, it knows where it wants to go. It knows its destination. And through the maze of tracks scattered around the countryside it finds a way for itself. Sometimes it must wait and be patient, sometimes it must make a detour, sometimes it’s a bit late, sometimes it picks an odd way, but it always reaches its destination.

I wish I were a train, one that knew its destiny.

Bande

2021-12-27T13:54:30Z

So broken was a bird,
it couldn’t be cured.
So robbed was its spirit,
it forgot it soared.
Tumbling from the open skies,
dream-clouds living in its eyes,
it fell on earth, hot and dry,
still letting out a loud cry…

Smile now God’s own child,
laugh it off with all your might,
for whatever happens,
a tomorrow will follow the dark night.

Only when infant-feathers learnt to defy,
the bird grew fearless and started to fly.
So keep the pain under your wings,
the hidden pathos will help you sing..

Smile now God’s own child,
laugh it off with all your might,
for whatever happens,
a tomorrow will follow the dark night.

Crushed with each shattered dream,
repeatedly it let out a loud scream.
But in each broken piece of desire,
it heard Maker’s own choir..

Smile now God’s own child,
laugh it off with all your might,
for whatever happens,
a tomorrow will follow the dark night.
– Vishal Dadlani

Some beautifully translated lyrics of a song I used to obsessively listen to a few years ago.

Be

2021-10-27T21:21:01Z

I was watching a cat. I wondered. Does she ever stop, sit, and contemplate, what is the purpose of her life?

I don’t think she does. I think she works on very simple processes. She has a stomach. It grumbles. When it does, she feels uncomfortable. She doesn’t like that feeling.

She likes me because she sees me as a provider of food. She has discovered that some things smell nice, and when she puts those things in her mouth and chews on them and swallows them, it makes the uncomfortable feeling go away.

All she wants to do is not have that uncomfortable feeling. She spends her day eating, drinking water, and sleeping.

Isn’t that what we do? What is it that we do? We sleep, we eat, we drink, we sustain ourselves for the next day. In the meanwhile, as we sustain ourselves, we indulge in life. Just like her.

So then, what is the purpose of life? I suppose, it’s just for your indulgence.

Why spend so much of it wondering? Just be a cat.

As the 15th century poet Kabir Das said: what did you bring with you into this world? What will you take with you? It’s only a journey of two days, a fair for a few days.

It’s just that, for us, that uncomfortable feeling goes away by hoarding and clinging on to imaginary numbers. We call it money.

Hurray for capitalism!

Moyamoya

2021-10-09T20:39:10Z

Reply All

#179 Pandemic Be Damned

Reply All is the only podcast I listen to. It’s usually about some quirky tech thing, perhaps how an algorithm works, or how someone used social engineering to do something fantastically amusing.

This episode is about the pandemic and how it has affected people’s mental health, but more importantly, how they dealt with it.

I have been feeling quite a lot of moyamoya. A lot of it has nothing to do with the pandemic, but pandemic didn’t help.

It’s a nice episode.

Paths & directions

2021-10-07T11:09:02Z

On a mountain, you can travel in the same direction as someone else but end up elsewhere.

One goes up. One goes down.

One more dimension.

Imposed limits

2021-08-28T23:41:21Z

Brother Cavil : In all your travels, have you ever seen a star go supernova?

Ellen Tigh : No.

Brother Cavil : No? Well, I have. I saw a star explode and send out the building blocks of the Universe. Other stars, other planets and eventually other life. A supernova! Creation itself! I was there. I wanted to see it and be part of the moment. And you know how I perceived one of the most glorious events in the universe? With these ridiculous gelatinous orbs in my skull! With eyes designed to perceive only a tiny fraction of the EM spectrum. With ears designed only to hear vibrations in the air.

Ellen Tigh : The five of us designed you to be as human as possible.

Brother Cavil : I don’t want to be human! I want to see gamma rays! I want to hear X-rays! And I want to – I want to smell dark matter! Do you see the absurdity of what I am? I can’t even express these things properly because I have to – I have to conceptualize complex ideas in this stupid limiting spoken language! But I know I want to reach out with something other than these prehensile paws! And feel the wind of a supernova flowing over me! I’m a machine! And I can know much more! I can experience so much more. But I’m trapped in this absurd body! And why? Because my five creators thought that God wanted it that way!
– John Cavil, Battlestar Galactica (Season 4, Episode 15)

Blame

2021-08-25T17:28:22Z

How hard is it to blame someone?

Why is there so much suffering?

Depending on the variety of priest or spiritual leader you meet in India, you will have the possibility of getting one of these two answers:

It is because of the sins you committed in your last incarnation.
It is because of the sins of your father.

They are both equally moronic. If there is a God or several gods, what kind of a moronic people are they? Why do we need to dedicate ourselves to them, for them to be good to us? Why must we follow their rules? Why are they so possessive, full of tantrums, and the rituals? Why? Why do they need so much pleasing? Why do we matter to them?

I don’t know what I was in my past incarnation or what terrible atrocity I committed to deserve a life trapped in this prison for a body. Why do I deserve to live with this body because of what my father did?! Were these rules written by morons?

Yes. Yes they were, written by morons drafting a story so they can perpetuate their power further and establish themselves as a higher force, above kings and queens, even. Religion was created by smart people; they used words to win wars, countries, kingdoms, and whatever else they wanted.

It has always been a business, a path to project power.

God will always be above the Crown, under which will be the weak common subjects.

Women will always be beneath Men, suppressed with societal stigmas and religious objections.

By the simple act of labeling women as inferior rather than different, 50% of the population is eliminated from this competition of life. What remains is a man, and he is given the responsibility to be the sole caretaker of his family. He needs to be masculine, a rock-solid foundation, upon which his woman will rely. That is what religions believe to be ideal.

Oh, and capitalism? Perfect! Men! Enjoy your time chasing imaginary numbers! If you have a lot of imaginary numbers, you will be immensely powerful! But, not as powerful as us, obviously. Religion is still above the ruling class. You will still be beneath us, these imaginary numbers. Remember your place in the hierarchy. God is above all, and we stand for God.

Just keep the men busy and the women suppressed. Oh and, nobody fucks. God absolutely does not want to watch you rub your bodies together.

That is all he does. Watch. Where is God when children are dying of malaria? There are worms that eat your eyes from the inside out. There are millions dying of malnutrition. There are people with lives of no meaning because they cannot ever get out of poverty. A billion people worth of lost potential.

There is no help. There is no God.

It’s a perfect set up for the influential and powerful, who do as they please, fuck who they like, and disregard anything that comes in their way.

Yet.

Yet, when coincidences happen, they leave this rational mind in a limbo. There are too many of them.

Why does it happen?

Why do things sometimes just fall in place?

At a cosmic scale, just as an example, why the distance and size of the sun, moon, and earth, align just ever so perfectly that we can get complete solar and lunar eclipses? What grand madness, at what scale, had to occur for this coincidence? Universe is full of coincidences and luck, incredible luck. Mathematical coincidences, patterns, and matter that we know nothing about. Humanity is lucky to exist in this muck.

This equation will change how you see the world (the logistic map) YouTube

But, humanity is nothing. At a cosmic scale, we are not even a speck of dust. God doesn’t care. It is a delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe. Universe is too vast to care.

Indeed, religion is an invention of the powerful to control the weak. Weak, who need someone to help them, and God surely will. He is kind, and generous, but you must follow these rules for God to like you. If you don’t, you will be punished by the very kind God.

However, that doesn’t mean the Universe doesn’t have a strange order to it. A mystical aura around it. Why are we here? There’s no reason, we just are. It’s okay to just be. Just to exist. We are all made of the same thing, and we will all end up in the same place. Our children, our ancestors, our anybody and anyone, at the same place, at the same time.

Why do we have coincidences? Why do we have things that just happen to be just right? Why is anything, at all, everything?

At this scale, at this place, nothing I just said matters. It’s okay to fuck, too.

Spirituality is simply a pursuit of freedom from the unnecessary, but that freedom, and what is unnecessary, means different things to different people. Spirituality, thus, is a process very personal. A spiritual leader’s spirituality is not your spirituality. It just can’t be.

Spiritual leaders do not sell spirituality, they sell tickets. You can read their ideas with their books that they sell thousands of copies of, because there is plenty of people that feel disconnected in this modern society.

A Greek philosopher’s ideas may resonate with you. They may help you, even. They feed you the fish, they don’t help you catch one.

They are not going to make you spiritual. That is something you must think for yourself, not read from a book, or learn from a show. A friend cannot teach you to be spiritual, neither can family. Strangers, definitely not.

It is just what makes you simply want to be you, just to be. Only you know.

Here is the funny bit:

One may argue that, here, I am selling my own brand of spirituality. Amusingly, it is even easier for me, because I simply ask you to think and make your own thing. It is less work for me.

I cannot entertain this argument as it is pointless. I asked for you to think for yourself, and by simply committing the act of creating this argument in your mind, you are.

Do not listen to me; be yourself.

10 years of silence

2021-08-21T03:09:31Z

My first work-like commitment started when I was 16. I call it that because it wasn’t paid and I wasn’t obligated to do it. I just felt like doing it. It was not work. It was fun.

A decade later, I am still doing the same thing, and I have made some money out of it. It’s not as much as I want to. But, I don’t even try. I make a few hundred dollars with zero effort.

I don’t like to do it anymore. It’s not fun anymore. It’s work.

People assume that I know what I am doing. Some seek my advice or assistance because they believe I am really good at what I do even though I am constantly learning new things and feel I know very little. I question myself. I am clueless.

But, I have some idea of what works and what doesn’t. That’s all.

Why is that?

It takes a lot of patience to eventually command a lot of perseverance. See how I say that? It takes time to learn how to use time. It takes patience to become patient.

But, there is no deliberate thought to it. I didn’t spend my time learning to be patient. It’s just something I learned while doing something else.

I often feel I don’t have enough patience.

Yet, I have been doing the same sort of work for the past decade, and continue to learn new things about it, without really thinking about it.

That’s the funny thing about it.

Perhaps, to someone else, that will look like perseverance. Or, patience. But, to me, it’s neither. I just did what I wanted to, exactly how much I wanted to. I didn’t give it more hours than I wanted, nor less.

I never questioned why I do what I do. I just did it because for the longest time I felt it was fun. I didn’t think about patience, or consistency, or learning, or any other emotion or big fancy words. I just did stuff.

What prompted me to write this post today was this article by James Clear.

I don’t think Mozart, Picasso, or Kobe, or anyone who’s done anything worthwhile, ever thought of doing anything worthwhile. They just did things.

Krishna, in the Hindu story of Mahabharat, asks Arjun to not think of the consequences and fruitfulness of his commitments and actions. Krishna asks Arjun to simply do.

According to the research mentioned in that article, it takes 10 years to become good at what you do. I have had my 10 years. I don’t feel I am good, and I don’t want to be good anymore. Where does that leave me?

What if, instead of zero effort, I put in 10%? Will I start enjoying it again? Or, will it just be more work?

Disability of culture

2021-08-03T00:37:44Z

What makes a person disabled? By definition, it is someone who is unable to perform the average day-to-day tasks that an able person could. But why?

If society collectively decided to build stairs that are four feet high, most people would not be able to use them. They simply wouldn’t be able to. They would be disabled.

It isn’t the person that needs to be fixed or to be made to feel inferior or incapable. It is the culture, the environment, the infrastructure, that needs a change.

This perspective is not a new idea; a disabled person is only disabled because the society has made it so. It is a cultural definition and obstacle.

Unfortunately, a culture is rigid by definition. It may just be simpler to migrate and assimilate into a more compatible culture. It would be a privilege.

In some Native American tribes, speech impairment is not seen as a disability as they simply don’t see it as a problem. It is an idea hard to grasp for most people in our modern society. “How could that be? Do they not talk? How can it not be a problem? It must surely hinder their ability to communicate!” It doesn’t; they don’t care.

A disability can be invisible. Anyone can be disabled. It isn’t their fault, nor is it a flaw. Only limits that do exist for them are the limits imposed by society, whether it be by inaction or purpose.

Anyone with a disability doesn’t need pity, doesn’t need attention, doesn’t need to be told that they are brave. It may be harder to perform day-to-day tasks, but that’s true for every living thing — just like how a bird can get to places quicker than any of us. Is a bird more abled than an able person?

That’s why it’s called accessibility. Just to make sure that there are no four feet high stairs. Just to make sure that you can access any place. Just to make sure it’s not harder. Just to make sure the world is a freer and equal place, for all humans.

A sea of luck

2021-06-21T12:00:00Z

What made the great explorers of our past dare see past the horizon? It’s a bit absurd isn’t it?

Sailing into the unknown with nothing but a poorly drawn map and intellect.

It worked for some, it didn’t for most. We only remember the ones for whom luck was gracious.

I hope I can have some of that luck.

Fewer wants lead to larger focus

2021-06-05T10:58:26Z

Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.
Epictetus

Australian electricity in Singapore!

2021-06-03T10:04:56Z

Wikipedia

Australia–Asia Power Link

I found this today. A proposed energy infrastructure project consisting of building a 4000km long undersea power line from Australia to Singapore.

Setting aside the mad magnitude of this project, how can a people be okay with such dependence? A few decades down the road, should Australia reconsider its choice of feeding electricity into the ASEAN region, Singapore et al may end up being stuck in a tricky situation.

I don’t know much about what the people of Singapore are like; perhaps dependence like this is okay in the eyes of Singaporeans as they have always had to depend on other nations around them – Singapore is a city-state, after all.

A birdy thought

2021-06-01T04:28:51Z

I just saw a teeny bird hop from a ledge and fly across the street to the second story of a house.

It took her merely a second.

Somehow, humans have managed to create a world for themselves that’s easier and quicker to traverse for birds than themselves.

Or, birds are superior after all. Dinosaurs would be proud.

What can you catch but not throw?

2021-05-30T12:00:00Z

A cold.

Does hell have an abundance of bananas?

2021-05-28T19:10:43Z

If the intellectuals of our world are destined to go to hell, wouldn’t said intellectuals need bananas… for scale?

If so, is hell full of bananas?

If so, are we in hell?

Due to unfortunate circumstances…

2021-05-23T12:00:00Z

…I am once again awake.

Here is I, planner of dreams & dreamer of plans

2021-05-15T12:00:00Z

That is all I do; procrastination is my forte.

Computer Vision without ML, to distinguish breads

2021-05-09T15:28:12Z

The New Yorker

The Pastry A.I. That Learned to Fight Cancer

This is such an incredible story. I love every bit of it. ML has its merits but the way this was done is somehow very appealing to me. Just the sheer effort and years of arduous work.

Not all those who wander are lost

2021-05-08T13:37:41Z

All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

Is it true – Tame Impala

2021-05-06T17:04:28Z

Tame Impala – Is It True YouTube

Life – Jehro 🎶

2021-05-05T19:06:25Z

Life – Jehro Spotify

A generation’s end

2021-05-04T12:00:00Z

Today, my grandmother’s brother passed away. It marks the end of a generation.

He had 4 sisters and a brother.

Him, and his brother and sisters, are the people I grew up with. I was pampered, spoiled, and loved by them throughout my childhood.

With him gone, the generation of my family he belonged to comes to an end.

I last met him at an event in February of 2020, before the pandemic hit India. “Hello” is all I said to him.

We grew apart in the past few years, but I will miss him.

As the people who I grew up with leave, I am once again left asking myself the question: what’s keeping me here?

Nothing. I just need a push. I just need kindness.

India, summarised

2021-05-02T23:32:36Z

I have been to 40 different countries. Yet India made the most indelible impression of any of them. And not for all of the right reasons. Frankly, it’s not a pleasant place to be. Anyone who tells you otherwise lacks perspective. India’s full of contradictions: horrors and delights, achievements and atrocities, often on the same city-block. And despite the immense history, the monuments, the spectacular sites of human ingenuity, one can’t help but ask themselves repeatedly what they’re doing there.
– Mark Manson

Hello world!

2021-05-02T12:00:00Z

This is my first post. Here is a cat (not mine):

Have a good day!