New ‘Ere

It’s technically not Jan 1, 2024 here in Columbia SC, yet. To be precise, it’s 7:33 PM, Dec 31, 2023 as I sit down to write this, after having taken a shower. In the course of aforementioned activity I also shaved the edges of my beard as an afterthought, and mulled for a while over whether or not to apply conditioner to the scarce tufts of hair on my scalp, while worriedly staring at the reflection of the bald spot that increasingly resembles a moon crater every passing week.

Why did I decide to type random words on my derelict blog after more than a year, one might ask. Certainly. One might also be asked to mind one’s business, if one may please. One would then roll one’s eyes in a surly fashion and grumble something about just being curious, no need to be so touchy about it.

But no, seriously, I might spout the usual tawdry dialogues which include but are not limited to “…I was too busy living,” or “…I was pursuing my creative potential elsewhere…” but the truth is I often just forgot, and was too lazy to be bothered when I did remember. I saw my sister writing a detailed listicle of books she read last year for her blog, and I thought to myself, “Hey, I’ve read books too! Maybe I should make a listicle that will contain a spiffing blend of quirky, poignant and mainstream books, which might then be read by an internet celebrity whom it happens to resonate with, and who casually reshares it, thereby making the post hugely successful and jump-starting my career of being a guy who writes funny book reviews, hobnobs over mimosas and samosas with the literati of south Bombay and south Delhi and gets magically paid for it!” Don’t lie, you’ve thought it too. We all have.

Anyway, I’m not going to list my top 10 books of the year over here in my dark corner of the net. I’d much rather do that on LinkedIn, where people feel obliged to share ‘inspirational’ one-liners that seem like they were made by Apple’s lazy marketing team, à la, “Work hard. It pays.” One would think that there are only so many ways to say that hard work is important, right? Wrong. You haven’t fully realised how important hard work is till you scroll through a series of cards that eliminate every other commonly used positive adjective.

I guess I wanted to put some quick thoughts down about my experience over the last 365 days before I get a chance to become a ruminating ruminant over it. And what’s the best way to put down quick thoughts, you might ask? Why, bullet points, of course. It’s how I write all my emails, ending them with a, “Best,” for good measure. I haven’t yet figured out what I’m besting them at, but it sounds like an apt superlative to conclude correspondence with. Anyway, here are the highlights, subject to recency effects, childhood trauma and implicit biases –

1. Running continued to remain an important part of life, albeit subdued and not subject to the same rigour as last year.
2. More than running itself, it’s the connections I’ve made through running that I find myself grateful for. P, T and S, to be precise. And S is now the longest stable relationship I’ve had in many many years, so there’s something.
3. Big strides, work-wise; got back into my coding groove and have somehow become an AI tinkerer with no idea what I’m doing, per the norm.
4. Big strides travel-wise as well – from London to Pondicherry, Coorg to Columbia, Mysore (thrice) to Madurai, and Jodhpur to Jaipur. The Coorg trip with D and M that had definite misty mountain vibes was long overdue, as was visiting my NRI fam.
5. Published a book of poetry of sorts, finally; I think I spent more time on the cover design and the illustrations inside than on shortlisting the actual poems. I wasn’t too pleased with the print quality and the shady shipment policy, but eh.
6. Lost touch with a few cool people, which I was sad about. I had honestly hoped to be better at maintaining friendships than I’ve been in the past.
7. I lost a dozen kgs last year and put back about half of it again this year, so I don’t know where my body image is going in the long run (that wasn’t initially intended as a pun). I do know I’m less angsty about it now that I’ve accepted that it’s a continuous journey and that one tiramisu isn’t going to make the difference between a beer belly and a six-pack. Having others around me to reign in my first-world anxiety helped immensely.
8. Deactivated Instagram a few months ago, which made no difference to my quality of life (and in fact led to a net improvement) so I decided to let it be that way. I uninstalled Netflix from my phone as well, a while later, in an attempt to stop watching The Office for the 16th time. But then I replaced my Xbox One with a Series X and now I’ve gone and bought an iPhone (woe is me, traitor to my principles, yes I know) so I honestly don’t know if I’m going to be less or more unproductive next year.
9. Yes, I did find time to read this year (again, mostly after leaving Instagram, so maybe there’s an inspirational quote in there somewhere) but a lot of my scant writing has been on Whatsapp and in scribblings in notepads. Let it suffice to say that I haven’t gotten more organised in my old age.

I guess 9 points is enough for deep reflection, introspection &c. is it not? Now, I know what you expect me to say next – my goals, hopes and dreams for the next year. To be quite honest, I’m an avaricious hedonist, so I have too many wants and desires to bother jotting down. If it helps, they can be categorised as follows –

1. Be immensely successful at work so that I can be even more of a covert narcissist
2. Be enormously empathetic and mightily grateful so that I can enjoy life more
3. Travel the living socks off of my bank balance, without the need for validation that I achieved something by going there
4. Write more, without filling my head up with excuses every Saturday for why I can’t. And get back into making music while I’m at it
5. Be fit as heck to reinforce point 1

Anywho, happy new year. Have a rollicking one!

Ah, Is It That Time Already?

The first fortnight of 2022 is officially over. It’s been one of the most eventful beginnings of a Gregorian New Year in my life. I’ve driven over 450 km, walked over 50 km, run about 21 km and have had countless realisations since the year started. One of them, possibly the most important, was that I don’t need to make any resolutions this time around.

Currently tucked into a quiet corner of South Goa, I’m reminded of the famous line from Go Goa Gone – “‘What do we know, what have we learnt?’ ‘We know nothing and we have learnt ghanta.'” I do believe that most, if not all of us are prone to falling into the same patterns if we don’t keep disciplining ourselves constantly. And that, of course, is exhausting. But is it also rewarding? I’d like to think so. The pandemic years have been instrumental in making me realise what’s important, and I like to believe I’ve used these years somewhat wisely. The first pandemic year drove me to explore my interest in music and design more seriously, while the encore in 2021 led me to work on my physical health. I was inspired in no small part by Alison Bechdel’s ‘The Secret to Superhuman Strength’, a must-read for anyone like me who has questioned the existential raison d’exercise.

After a few months of jogging last year, I’d decided to take the plunge and showed up at the gym in my apartment. For additional motivation (and because I didn’t know what the alien contraptions in the gym were for), I signed on with a personal trainer. I won’t lie, after the first two sessions which left my body feeling like a tightly-wrung dirt rag, I was tempted to call it quits and go back to my leisurely jogs, where I’d be in control of how much pain I wanted to put my heart and bones through. Nevertheless, I kept it up, thanks in part to my overinflated ego and obsessive nature. Even though my belly fat didn’t disappear in a week like I’d wished it would, I started feeling better about my physical self, and began to appreciate the subtle wonders of the human body. For the longest time, I have loathed my body and considered my mind to be my only worthy feature, which led me to disregard the former and put all my energies into the latter. I’m sure this has been instrumental in all the issues I’ve had in my relationships so far, along with my general tendency to self-sabotage. Gaining this insight into myself has also helped me to curb some destructive patterns over the last few months.

Just when I was getting into the swing of strenuous daily exercise, I caught COVID. Thankfully I had already had my first shot, and it was much after the panic-filled months of April and May when medicines were in rare supply. I recovered fairly quickly and painlessly at home, and we had a long-awaited family reunion thanks to the extra help needed by Ma. However, I was shocked by how much my stamina had degenerated after my dance with the virus. I was barely able to walk 2 km without getting all winded. I couldn’t let my hard-earned progress go to waste, so I returned to my gym just as soon as I felt I wouldn’t collapse after a set of squats. COVID helped me realise how much I now valued my physical well-being. As soon as I returned to Bangalore, I signed up at my local gym and found an experienced trainer, who seemed less intent on setting my muscles on fire during every session.

On the professional front, I have yet to figure out what I really want to do. Last year I dallied with front-end development, database architecture, and a host of other technical skills that I didn’t possess, in a team that I most definitely didn’t feel qualified to be in. But for some reason people keep giving me the thumbs-up even though I have no idea what I’m doing half the time. I’ve also gotten somewhat addicted to doing courses online, to the point where it’s become a running gag for my peers on LinkedIn that I’d turn up at least once a month to post a completion certificate for something. I suppose some addictions are less harmful than others.

If there was something that I ended up doing a lot less of last year, it’s probably reading and writing. But that’s okay (you hear me, productivity-obsessed brain?). There’s only so much one can do. If I had a new years’ resolution, it would probably be around becoming more disciplined and engaged so I can be in every moment more and stop being anxious about what I’m potentially missing out on. That way, I could take up a few more things and not go into a faint at the end of each month, exchanging memes about the hasty passing of time. That’s another thing I’ve realised, as I turn a nice round age of 30 this year. So much of my mental energy is spent on planning for the immediate future, that I often miss out on making lasting memories in the present. Being present, being empathetic, being open, being free. This year I’d like to just be.

Okay Google, ‘Resolutions’

Did you mean things you would like to do but aren’t going to happen, you lazy sod?

Damn straight. Even before we make our ‘New Year’s Resolutions’, most of us have already split them into categories based on various factors and dependencies, Here are a few of them –

Grand ones based on social pressure/appeasement: Most of our resolutions are these. When you know you may have to resolve something for the populi, which everyone should ‘aww’ on ‘ooh’ at. These may include – “I resolve to bring about world peace and end poverty by 2016”, etc.

Based on strange notions of self-esteem: “I will work out religiously and get a 12 pack for selfies”. “I will definitely lose 15 kgs and grow 2 feet MINIMUM.” “I’ll get at least 2 gals this year for sure!”

Based on under-estimation of well-established character traits: “I resolve to be a better person and not slap people randomly”, “I am determined to control my temper and take things in good humour!”

Based on over-estimation of time (or misapprehensions after watching time-loop movies): “I will be better at multi-tasking: Be on-time for work from 9 to 7, do yoga for 4 hours, spend evenings with family, gym for 3 hours and get good sleep for at least 7 hours everyday!” Unless you plan on burning yourself out and going into a coma on day 1 of 2015, please avoid.

Based on pseudo-intellectualism: “I don’t believe in resolutions! What’s the point, really? Comte didn’t believe in them, and he founded sociology.” “A resolution is simply a RE-solution, so it implies an attempt to connect to something that is past, which is wrong.”

Based on misguided attempts to be cool and rad: Often connected to the previous one. “My resolution is to remember all the previous resolutions I’d made! lol” “I’ll tell you my 2015 resolutions next year, it’ll take a while” “Don’t you know January is named after Janus, so we need to look at both the past and future! I’ll reflect and make resolutions in Feb”

There are many, many more of course, but I do not have time to dwell on all of them and their subtle complexities.

But on that note, here’s my primary list for 2015 –

1) Figure out how I got a beer belly sans beer (it’s the pizza)
2) Get rid of aforementioned belly aka cycle to work every day (begun).
3) Study the hell out of socio for exams and make the paper-checker remember his naani.
4) Ace stuff at work, but don’t give up the low-key diligence. Do give up on being a procrastinator (will revisit later)
5) Visit at least one buddhist practitioner a week and get encouraged to do stuff in life.
6) Get over a certain someone (nearly there)
7) Travel like a boss (started saving).