Sikkim Diaries: Looking for clarity

Lights out Alice!

A focal theme in most of my pointless blogs circles around me thinking clearly or clearly struggling to do so which causes a lot of frustration. I really do not like when I am unable to visualize a topic completely, which generally means I am unable to understand it completely or have not had enough time to think through it in my head, despite there being first hand spoken description given by people about it. My brain just flat out rejects anything that it has not come to by itself. It likes live in a delusional mirage that all the conclusion or insights that it (my brain) gains from any piece of information is original and unrivalled work that nobody else could have gotten to, even though it might be the most obvious answer out there or ten people around me would have told the exact same thing. 

Regardless of this sad modulus operandi, this is how my brain likes to go about doing work and hence this is how I have to go about anything. However, the frustration mounts when I do not get time to sit by myself with a topic and think through everything in my head first or separately. I am not able to constructively contribute in a meeting if I have not prepared. I do not get the logic of working in a group and figuring out/ brainstorming creative ideas while in a meeting. Not saying it is not the right way, since for some people it is the best way to get their creative juices flowing and get the best out of them. I just need a slight step added to this beforehand. If I have had time to sit with my brain and go through the information beforehand, I am not cranky, not anxious, not antsy, not impatient and off-hand with people. If I have done my homework, I am at peace with myself and my situation and am able to give extra leeway to anything that goes awry. Now imagine a situation wherein I have spent a few hours doing nothing, have no clarity on what I actually need to do and have just being given contrasting instructions from my manager/ boss. I would be furious, snappy, argumentative, snobby and borderline rude.

What I have found to be effective is to have some time alone before I start my day or work to go through what I have to do. Create some semblance of a structure or a plan. Post that, first go in and get some of my personal work done. Once I am happy with my status is when I can start thinking of following up or getting into group work. However, therein lies a key flaw. As you grow, the job is less and less about doing your own work and more about managing other people and their work, which does not strike my fancy at all. Being the hall monitor always feels like a sellout job to me. I do not see the point even though this is currently where my life is headed. What is funny is that the society actually pays people more to monitor other people who are creatively gifted and underpays the geniuses and the smart folks who come up with creative solutions. 

Isn't the compensation pyramid upside down? Why are the people who manage the creative people paid more? Why are the people who ACTUALLY do the ground work, or work in the fields valued like cash crops and why are dum dums like me sitting in an ivory tower with no understanding of the acumen it takes to drive change paid more?

Why isn't physical labour valued? Why is a farmer considered less important than a person concocting shit for a marketing campaign? Maybe I am looking at the wrong scale or way of measurement since on a financial level farmers might be lower but contentment CAN be greater, although there is no hard and fast guarantee on this.

I just need to be better and actually meaningfully contribute to society Alice!

Sikkim Diaries: The Room with a view

Lights out Alice!

This part of Sikkim Diaries focuses on what is easily the most spacious and elegant room I have ever stayed in although it is a guesthouse inside a factory (important to note that it is inside the factory as it comes with its own set of limitations). 

The guesthouse is classy. Lavish, but with elegance. It has everything you can imagine in a hotel room, with added benefit of having everything that you might need in case you were on the road or living out of a suitcase for a long time. Initially I felt it was a bit of an overkill, a form of opulence, but after spending a few weeks here, the conclusion is far simpler than that. It is not opulence, but a requirement to be self-contained and self-sustainable. The guesthouse is inside of the factory and the factory itself is located in a remote area up in the hills, by the wayside, overlooking mountains with a raging river next to it on one side. The setting, is serene but more importantly, balanced. While the mountain peaks that can be seen adorned with clouds straight out of the window in the morning offer peace and calm, the incessant buzz of the raging river right not even 10 metres from my room reminds us of the ferocity of nature. The river, to be fair which it is not, it is just a tributary that goes on to connect to Teesta, is mesmerizing, inspiring and annoying, all at the same time. It is mesmerizing to see how water flows. Allow me to explain. The flow rate of water here is very high. Since it is coming down and the entire land is sloping downwards, it has a lot of potential energy combined with volume. The mesmerizing part is because of what it flows over. If the same ferocious water is flowing over a smooth bed, there is very little turbulence because of which the water appears deceptively calm. However, this myth is immediately shattered as soon as the bed is filled with rocks, of which there are many and of multiple size and shapes. As soon as something breaks the laminarity (I am not sure if I am using this word correctly or how the Reynolds number is changing), because of the rock, the turbulence brings out the violent nature of the flow. It rages over, around and surrounds the rock, reminding it of a power that is unshakable, even though the rock is adamantly stuck in its place and provides a good battle. This constant battle wherein neither the rock is affected nor the water is deterred is what is inspiring to me and symbolic of the balance that is beautiful in the world for us to observe.

Just like everything else in life or in inanimate objects, over time it loses its sheen and you start taking it for granted, which sucks, since I try to remind myself that it is all fleeting and this view and the combination of this time, headspace, lack of responsibilities or real pressure in life will never come back again. This moment is probably one of the most beautiful room with a view combinations I will ever have in my life and currently I am drowning in irrelevant issues to even realize and acknowledge the beauty that is surrounding me. 

Sikkim Diaries: Prologue

Lights out Alice!

Most of the times I do have a lot to say. About everything mostly. As usual, given my lack of discipline, I fail to write any of them down in time anyways. Most of my thoughts just get lost in inner dialogue which is just sad given that there are some good arguments and self realisations that I come across. Furthermore, the ability to describe places are way better in my head versus when I actually get around writing them down.

Don't forget the fact that I am scatterbrained and it is very hard for me to stay put and complete a line of thought. Thoughts come flying at me at the speed of sound in all directions, my brain reacting and processing it even faster, (most of the time at the expense of thinking critically and originally) resulting in the fact that I jump into different schools of thought without actually completing the first one.

The only saving morsel of a saving grace is that this shit head sometimes comes back to the original thought and since it had swam across a deluge of garbage to get back here, the second take is somewhat easier. Don't take it to mean that I will actually complete my train of thought this time around though. Nope, I still go off on tangents. Case in point, I am returning back to this blog after a gap of three days. But since there were many parts of this story and it would be too much for me to complete all of it in one go, I decided to break it off into smaller parts in an effort to ensure I actually finish something which will then help the next part and the one after that.

Fingers crossed Alice to see if I follow through and see this out.

Note to self 14.08.23

Lights out Alice!

It is so funny that I writing down the thoughts being dictated by my brain to remind myself of the good things I have or the path that I am on or how it is all going to be okay regardless of it actually being okay given the propensity for my brain to forget the plan it itself created for me just a few hours or days ago to tackle the very situation we had found ourselves then in. Basically, these are my thoughts written down to reassure myself of there being a plan, which was itself created by my brain in response to this very same panic faced a few days ago. Kudos, shit-head.

The very desire to be successful in public drives most of capitalism, corporate culture and the need to grow, earn degrees, change jobs or chase a higher CTC. Corporate does not want you to bring your creativity to the table. It does not want you to bring your A-game everyday to work. It wants you to just do the job assigned. No questions raised. No thinking outside of the box. No questioning the JD or its relevance. Just do it. Think within it.

Life outside of academics has been a daily brain drain game. Not that academics wasn't constricted in its own right. But there I had the ability to be an outlier, to chase the things worth chasing, to claim the moral high ground of wanting knowledge, a journey so pure that very few would dare ask you the reason why that was essential even though deep down you knew that it wasn't the pure search for knowledge, but the sin of chasing attention that led you here. However, somewhere down the line, I started liking the journey and the discipline it demanded of me. I loved the fact that there was a sea out there that I could never traverse fully, a sea of opportunities or an ocean of hopelessness, depending on the day and our approach. Since my time with academics was un-constricted, in the sense that I did not depend on it for feeding me, I could dally with it on my terms and set the pace of how I wanted things to go and simply reject the pieces that did not fit. This should be a grim reminder that it is not all rosy but exactly like a summer fling. There was no expectation and I did not do anything responsible or mature.

Long story short though...TO MY IDIOT BRAIN:

• You need to decide what you want to pursue (everything is NOT an option, don't do it)
• Do you want to chase promotions or start figuring out what you want to learn, even if it does not give you any monetary return?
• Do you want to rely on your laurels and live in denial about the fact that you are slipping and just finding some external reasons and circumstance to blame it on?
• You don't follow through on your ideas!
• You are breaking your good habits and building bad short term pleasure seeking dopamine infusing habits (case in point: preferring gym over calisthenics just because shape is better even though it has a negative cardio and endurance impact)
• You are again getting drawn into people and their opinion and slowly transitioning to do things that people (external and irrelevant) find appealing and not doing things that you actually like!!! What a shitter...snap out of it...stop doing things for attention or glory or a positive feedback...DO THINGS BECAUSE YOU WANT TO...because you have that drive inside of you!

Anyways, I think I have repeated this numerous times yet I do not seem to get it...so I will keep reminding myself. Thanks for listening as always Alice!

About a happy place

Lights out Alice!

Time and again I have questioned myself as to why I have felt so attracted to motorsports/ automobiles/ machines in general. Is it the complexity? Is it the ingenuity that is intrinsically required to improve efficiency? Is the fact that in the end the greatest source of inspiration for all mechanistic movements is human motion or nature, the irony that in an effort to remove limitation of speed and efficiency imposed by humans, we got there and mimic nature and natural bionic movements?

To be fair, I don't know. I am sure the equation runs deeper than that and definitely there must be some emotional, trauma bonding or aspirational angle to it as well. But I still go back to Capeta in my head as to what a dream scenario would be like. Anytime I want, I can hear the opening credits of the show as well as the episode wherein he is about to start his first race in F4 in an international circuit. The roar of the engines as they warm up on the grid, the diminutiveness of the entire paddock as compared to the venue, all leading up to a panning shot as to how the entire atmosphere felt so large yet so minuscule in relation to the arena it was taking place in.  

A recent addition to my happy place has been driving. No, I do not have a car yet (my parents' car) and Zoomcar has gotten crazy expensive to the point wherein I can no longer stretch any argument to justify the expenditure. When I visualize it, it is as simple as me approaching a tight downhill right hander starting off with both hands on the steering wheel at a decent rate of speed, nothing too insensible. I take my left hand off the steering wheel and start moving it towards the gear stick while I start decelerating through a gently increasing application of the brakes. A clean jerk of the clutch in between to shift down from fourth to third which is extremely satisfying when the revs match and the car just catches the sweet spot of the rev range around 3000, which may be too high for some eco-maniacs, but I like using the entire rev range. The downshift, if done right, gives me such a high. Then gently peeling off the brake as I line up the turn. The turn in, while again selecting between second and third to see which would ensure that I have good power out of the corner.

Simple really. This moment, the entire sequence, is my happy place for now. Maybe things change, actually they definitely will. Nothing ever stays the same. I will fall down and I might never be this happy again. But I will thank my lucky stars for this moment and all that I have gotten recently.

Lights out Alice!

What is the right way to choose?

Lights out Alice!

Sometimes I think that I am not made for being with people. This fear is real and has manifested itself big time now that I am on the receiving end of unfettered attention.

But it would be ironic if I stop at this level given how I keep telling people to dive deeper and find the root cause.

The next level that has come around is the situation itself. Usually I am used to being told no and being the one that has to work towards getting the other person to like them. I have to "accept" them for who they are and get them to see what I am, a marketing pitch of sorts. This also creates the illusion in my head that the other person would be a good addition and it would be worthy to have them in my life. In my current situation, the other person is not a chase, they are there. Furthermore, they are pretty open about their feelings towards me. There is nothing for me to help fix. No goal.

Is that why there is no attraction?

What is it that people call butterflies and blinding attraction? Is that just the thrill of the chase? Or is that real?

I compare and ask myself this question over and over again. My gut tells me that this is not a good fit, but that idiot organ does not give an explicit reason why. My brain on the other hand, sees the potential that this person has and is excited in sharing a future with them.

The other thought that floods my brain is what if I am not meant for any person. I am definitely attracted, somewhat (maybe, I don't know what is the right way) to the opposite gender and we can rule out me being gay.

Thoughts, old and new; scrambled and straight

Lights out Alice!

Whoever must have created us must be pretty disappointed in the way we CHOOSE to use our brains. The unchangeable human nature to find the negative in any situation is such a morose way of functioning that sometimes it gets in the way of our own happiness.

To be fair, the issue lies deeper:

• I don't know how to be happy
• Actually, I know it is okay to be happy, but I feel like if I do not acknowledge it, it won't count and I don't have to face future hardships
• What if I am happy right now and I actually chose to live it and never face this kind of happiness again?
•  Counter: What's the point of holding on to something that can never be held, clutching on desperately to something that was never solid enough to be grabbed at in the first place? Time passes, memory fades, wounds heal; everything moves on, so why as humans do we hold on to a memory, a connection that wasn't meant to be, an opportunity that was never right for us, a construct of our imagination that selectively construes the message that all we were hoping for was there in our past but has now eluded us because of our choices. No, at this point, we need to remind our brain that it is playing tricks on us. It is selectively telling us the things that we do not want to hear (but actually do) to make us feel bad about our choices. It is our brain WANTING TO FEEL BAD.
• Counter: What is superbly infuriating and frustrating me is the fact that even though over 90% of my life is PRETTY STONKING great, I am messing up my mental space by caring about the 10% that is currently out of whack. WHAT A SHIT thing to do...why are our human heads wired to focus on misery and completely ignore the awesomeness surrounding us. I have seen this time and time again. Whenever I am in a situation where everything is pretty decent, the situation giving half a chance to be happy and 

Its back to square one

Lights out Alice!

I get to hate myself, don't I? I get to hate my situation, don't I?

Actually, I don't! When having these thoughts and entering any sort of conversation with myself, the first thing that I tell myself is that I have no right to feel this way. Yes, I don't have the right to feel hollow, to feel the sorrow or even wallow in the pain of loneliness. I don't get to do this because I am lucky. I am lucky to have my board of directors, my support system, who are always there for me, even on the days I have been a bad child. I don't get to say this because of my guardian angel, who always supports me in everything, especially the reckless ideas. I know I have written this time and time before, but it is just my way of reminding me that I am privileged and lucky and I don't have any right to complain.

But, but, the flipside is the fact that I have very little soul-satisfaction on a professional life and purpose front. I am lost. I am lost because I don't have anything to work towards and the work I am in is not something that drives my soul. No doubt when I am doing the job it can become engaging enough because it has technicalities and is challenging, but it hasn't reached the stage where it would drive me to get out of bed in the morning. 

I know I have to lay the ground work for anything I want to develop a competency for in the future. I have to grind, to put in the time if I remotely want to be in a position to be able to take advantage if any opportunities present itself. However, for the better part of the day, I spent my time in an environment that promotes cut-throat short term gratification, instant results, rapid action without any time given to let anything sit and simmer. Even though I do not want to, I generally give in to this short-term feedback loop, make big plans for the day and never get around executing even a third of them, if that. 

As a picture I came across while quickly scrolling through my phone because I got distracted reminded me, I am not putting in the time because I don't want it bad enough. We MAKE time for things that matter, we go the extra mile without being asked twice about it and hence if all I am finding time for is excuses, maybe the discipline is not strong enough. Not motivation, but discipline, because motivation would only come after there is some feedback on the positive front. Laying ground work for the future is a lot of hard work in the dark, most of which will not bear any fruit, and definitely none of them would bear fruit anytime in the short run. Which is what makes it tough. Which is also what makes it cool to work towards. 

I am okay with that, my actions need some time to catch up with it but there is a larger issue. The larger issue is that I can only choose a few paths to trench down in, but am unable to decide which paths I should lay the groundwork for. I don't know if these areas would be a good option to pursue full time, maybe the failure rate is too high, maybe it mis-matches with my professional journey and maybe it never works out right. The problem with having some form of a secured structure in life is that you stop taking risks, you become complacent and you stop believing that you can make it when you are working for an incumbent behemoth of a company. 

I laugh at what I have become. I used to always be ready to fight, but now I seem to have lost faith in my discipline, my grind. I have become complacent. I don't think I can win and that is exactly why I would lose. Because my purpose and the fire is not strong enough. The OPM (read Other People's Money) is reigning too much control over me.

I really hope Alice that this struggling phase will decrease, that I will get back on my feet and get somewhere. I hope that I don't mind failing and I take the risks rather than stay behind security and never try. I know it is stupid to think I will always have the luxury of being able to do reckless things, but I also hope I can decouple the ability to think freely that comes with being reckless and adopt it, while also having the sensible point of view brought about by age and responsibilities.

I hope I get better Alice! 

I am happy and sad, but is that bad?

Lights out Alice!

I initially wanted to write that the demons are back and I am pretty sad. Then I realized that I am currently sitting on the rooftop of a 16th floor hotel overlooking the Arabian sea on one side, Malabar Hills on another, Gateway of Indian on another and has a direct view to the home of the Ambanis but I am still kinda sad and mostly lost.

Yesterday, I had a pretty stonking day wherein I got to travel across Mumbai, in the rains, which is a pretty big plus, see cool cars, travel in empty trains at nights, all things that pretty much make for a perfect evening. Oh, not to discount the highlight of my day, which was getting to meet my sister, although it was only for half an hour.

I really like sombre evenings post rain, when the air is filled with earthen hope, cleansed of any past misgivings, with surroundings so vivid in colour that it fills ones heads with hope and etches ideas and optimism in colour. 

I don't know why I love travelling in trains, probably because my dad and my granddad were in the Railways and it was pretty much the coolest thing growing up. I always wanted to be a top engineer in the Railways, to bring about exciting innovations and be the change that I wanted to see in it. Even today, when I know that dream is long gone and the path that life has chosen for me has deviated from a government job or even traditional engineering domain, I still share the same passion and enthusiasm for trains, engineering and science. To be fair, I would like to believe that liking has increased somewhat given that it no longer has to fight the drudgery of politics, bureaucracy or the constant stressful feeling of being a below-average engineer in the field I really wanted to excel at. Every thing becomes a bit more rosy and appealing as long as you look at it from the outside and don't have to deal with the nitty-gritties. I think most of the things I like stem from that idea. I patronize and create a mirage of the best bits of a particular profession without taking into account the realities that accompany it side by side. I particularly like cars and would in a breath take up a job in the field, but I also know the sad reality that not everyone would share the same passion and enthusiasm for it and it might be a let down for me when I get there. I also believe that it can be the case that my knowledge and understanding will not stand the realities of the field and that I would be woefully inadequate when it came to actually wading through the depths of reality.

 

Dedicated to a good friend

Lights out Alice!

I would like to set the context on the outset. I am not very good at public settings or expressing my feelings out in the open among people I barely know. That does not mean that I do not feel to the extent that any other human is expected to feel. Also, that does not imply that I am good with words. Yet, I will give it a try, because the person is worth it.

What is it like to see a good friend get married, I asked myself? What does it mean to see that person happy, on a real level, not just superficially, even though you are no longer as close to that person as you once were? What does it mean to just be grinning ear to ear, looking at a friend dancing in joyous revelry, wishing nothing but happiness to the couple (more realistically, wishing them the ability to fight together through thick and thin)?

Given how much time has passed since college, we might as well be strangers, Pit. We no longer share the same routine, or spend most of our days together hating on our college or sharing our love for cars or work on that off-road buggy that never got completed. Just like most young friendships, although we first met through mockery and disdain for each other, we stayed together without any reason. Our band of 3, with DC, just settled into a groove and clicked into place. None of us forced it or had similar traits. But enough of revelling in the past.

What I really liked about you throughout the 4 years of college, although you were absent for most of the latter part, was the fact that you always had a smile on your face. Nothing fazed you, be it a test you had not studied for or the teachers hating on you for being carefree. I learned a lot from you. But I have also seen you through tough times. It didn't change you as a person as you were still steadfast and had it together. I am pretty sure you had your downs and I wasn't a part of those since we weren't very close, but you were still an inspiration.

As I sat through your kirtan or saw you on your roka, I sat back and truly soaked the moment. I was happy for you man. I was proud of you, like a parent would, but in a way that made me content, seeing you enjoy yourself in these moments.

I don't know much about V, but I hope she is happy, and would like to convey to her that you are a pretty awesome soul that I had the good fortune to meet. I wish both of you all the very best for the rest of your life...and I truly mean it. 

I know you have a long way to go, and life will get rough someday, but I hope you remember that you have what it takes to make it through.

Thanks for being a friend Pit!