Excursions

What do I call the entries that I write here? Notes? Posts? Thoughts? Or does that even matter? This is my blog, a space, as I noted earlier, for the “quick posts journaling whatever is at the top of my mind”.

I don’t call them quick posts because they are less formal. Instead, they are less formal because I want them to be. Because I write them as short, quick posts. They need not be correct. They need not be corrected.

Manu wrote recently about how he dislikes editing old blog content.

[A] personal blog can and should be a representation of who you are at different points in time. We change, we grow and our thoughts and ideas grow and change with us. And it’s important to have testament of that.

I, too, am firmly in Manu’s camp. If I were to improve my old posts, I would never write anything new. The ideas are shitty, and the way I wrote them is shittier. Nevertheless, I still stand by all of those posts. Sure, I may not endorse any of those views today. But they are the views of my younger self.

The world around me has changed over the years. So has the world within me. It is only natural then that how I look at and understand the world has evolved too.

I recently observed my writing may have gained correctness at the cost of courage. Colin had an interesting thought responding to the post.

I’m not sure about it being a lack of courage, rather an increased reticence stemming from a low-level, underlying fear that now pervades the web.

Is it the fear of being wrong that has made me change what and how I write? Sure, that too. Whatever the reason, I am not the same self I was a few years ago. Why, then, should I ever correct what he thought and wrote? It helps neither the reader nor me.

Get to the point. I remember those words every time I write anything.

Another way to look at it is to focus on how I begin my posts. Matthew Dicks reminded me about the importance of this today.

Focus on the first thing you write, say, or sing. Spend time making the absolute best decision about those first few things you are going to express. Never forget their importance to everything that will come after.

I was (and still am) bad at this aspect for years. I circle what I want to say before I say what I want to say. Over years of writing, I got better at this. I come to the point quicker now.

I feel frustrated when I see some of the most personal stuff with an interesting premise get lost in need of setting context. Many writings need context setting. Research papers need context. Thesis. How-to Manuals. And on and on.

But a personal blog does not. Sure, some stories need a build-up; take the reader along the ride. But most don’t.

On the other hand, does there even need for an “effective way” of writing anything personal? It’s personal, after all. Individual. There’s no correct way of doing it. It’s a matter of style.

But what counts is not to lose the reader before I arrive at the point. So begin strong.

I watched Kuttey yesterday – what a terrible letdown. Given the list of artists as part of the cast and crew, I had such high expectations. But the skill of being a competent storyteller cannot be faked. It tried too hard to be cool, “new age”. Every frame screamed that it was inspired by the style of Guy Ritchie or Tarantino. Or even Bharadwaj’s own Kaminey.

What the Jr. forgot is it isn’t the style that made these directors what they are.

Everybody was trying too hard – even the seasoned actors looked uncomfortable playing the part. A short run-time of 90 minutes felt too long, even though the screenplay was fast-paced. I kept moving ahead scene after scene because I knew exactly how it would play out.

Barring the last 15 minutes, hardly any part catches your attention. Sigh! Such sheer waste of talent.

Sky flies! #stories

I read a post today that I had written around 15 years ago. Reading my words from yesteryears, especially from my early days of blogging, reminds me every time how fearless I was in expressing what I had in mind. Not everything I wrote made sense. But it wasn’t bogged down by a fear of correctness.

Correctness of idea. Of language. Of grammar. Of words.

Is my #writing susceptible to that fear now? I hope not because, to me, it needs to be free-flowing. Sure, I am more alert to the mistakes in my use of the language. Or of words. But that’s bound to happen naturally over years of reading and writing.

This reminds me of a nice quote from an Indian actor I respect, Pankaj Tripathi. He was talking about how fame and money have changed the artist in him. An artist, he said, is much more courageous and adventurous when they are new and lack money. Their experience, popularity and earnings make them powerful but timid.

I believe the same applies to one’s experience with writing words. What I gained in correctness, I likely lost in courage.

So, which version of the self do I enjoy reading more? I like to believe that my writing has improved over these years. I am no master, but I am not an amateur either. Even though I am not the same fearless blogger from the past, I don’t mind this slightly mindful version of myself.

One productivity hack I have read the most often is just to get started. Not to wait for inspiration or motivation. Not to procrastinate. Even with writing, or any art form, many often allude to the importance of blank canvas.

Stare at the page; one’s mind will soon start filling it up with colours. Or words, in my case.

It has worked for me, too, for the last few weeks. The posts eventually happen when I make myself available in front of the laptop. With me travelling and visiting my cousins for the last few days, no surprise they didn’t.

It was a welcome and much-needed break. I visited Mumbai, a place that I have a love-hate relationship with.

On the one hand, I love spending time with my cousins. The togetherness lends me a reset when I can forget all the stress and burdens of daily #life. Over the food we love and the memories that we chatter about. As time passes, the animated environment gives way to moments of real connection. As individuals find corners where they catch up on others' lives, I get surrounded by mumbles. But soon, as someone invariably gets hungry, everyone regroups, and the surroundings get filled with laughter again. This cycle continues throughout the day and late into the night.

Nothing’s more comforting than spending time with people you bond with.

But then I hate Mumbai when I need to visit the city. It’s too lively for my liking. Everyone’s moving too fast. Every place is too crowded. No one has time to pause. And if I do, I face a lot of glares from the Mumbaikars. This includes my cousins too. Why the hell will you do that - stop?

Some cities want you to pause and absorb their essence. Mumbai is not that city. It wants, needs you to match up with its speed. I struggle to do that. And I struggled this time, too. I returned home exhausted, drenched with the pressure of meeting the city’s high lifestyle standards.

As I lay tired in bed, there was a moment when I attempted to push myself to publish something. Anything. But I have already conceded that this place won’t follow a schedule. This place isn’t a journal that I need to update daily. This place isn’t a newsletter that needs to stick to a schedule. This place is my blank canvas.

I attempted to watch Netflix’s new docuseries “MH370: The Plane That Disappeared” - and it’s absolutely terrible. It gives focus to too many characters, goes all over the places and never returns back.

I don’t even know what’s the story they want to tell. It’s not what happened to the plane or who is responsible or even how it affected the people related to the passengers on-board. It tries to do all of it and does half-assed job at each.

I would recommend listening to the podcast episode on this topic by Stuff You Should Know. They do a far better job at explaining the mystery than this supposed to be well-produced documentary by Netflix.

I had heard a folktale as a child that I still love. The morale it narrates is loosely translated as “an entire tub full cannot retrieve what the drop took away”. But the real takeaway from the tale was to be wary of one’s instinctive reactions.

The spontaneous reactions taken in anger are as instinctive as instinctive can get. In that sense, anger is destructive. Rebounding from the aftermath that an angry reaction leaves behind is no painless task. It doesn’t matter how much one attempts to recover what was lost; the scarred mind cannot be easily healed.

Because anger scars both people, even the one who gets angry.

Hence I have moulded myself to not give in to the instinct when angry. I remind myself that my brain is muddled, and the best action I can take is to walk away and take a few deep breaths. It avoids ruining the remaining day for the other person and me.

Don’t recover. Resist.

I love USB C standard for charging - one cable at a fixed places charges everything throughout the day. My work and personal laptop, iPad, earphones, headphones, speaker. And my phone. Thank god i don’t use iPhone.

Today got as frustrating as the working days can get, shaking my confidence in my capabilities to the core. As I signed off for the day, I was left numb.

I toiled hard, but the circumstances fought back stronger. Key people went on unplanned leave. Approvals got delayed. Core systems faced unplanned downtimes. Folks got under undue pressure, and they began rubbing it off others.

The last one on the list of unfortunate events above is the worse. I hate when people do that.

Work one gets assigned can be delegated. Shared. Pressure shouldn’t be.

I am generally a lot more organized while handling my tasks with a clear goal for the day. But it gets frustrating when people pollute my day with their priorities. When they devalue my time because they can’t value theirs.

What’s even more frustrating is that in a corporate world, there’s just no way out of this at times.

As the day progressed, I was overwhelmed by the sheer number of tasks left untouched, the tasks that I should have worked on instead. The third day running of missed daily goals and the list keeps piling up.

Fingers crossed, tomorrow dawns better. That I manage to put my head down and pull my messed-up productivity out of the rut.

Silence is golden. Amidst friends, it is not. →

It was Holi today, and I was surrounded by friends or people I knew once as friends. Yet there was hardly anyone I could walk up to and converse with without things getting awkward pretty soon. I knew then that some threads between us were broken.

Silence is golden. Amidst friends, it is not.

It was Holi today, and I was surrounded by friends or people I knew once as friends. Yet there was hardly anyone I could walk up to and converse with without things getting awkward pretty soon. I knew then that some threads were broken within us. Some memories were lost. Some part of me was forgotten.

I won’t be too self-critical by blaming myself. Such has been the #life for the last few years that there has hardly been time to peer beyond the bounds of the close family.

The pandemic locked us in our houses. And we forgot what we had left out.

I have been attempting to come back to normalcy slowly. It was exactly a year ago when I reconnected with my extended family. My cousins. It was the same occasion as today when I’d welcomed them home. We’d made some of the best memories and relived them again today.

Memories. Such a remarkable aspect of our lives this is. Say it aloud, and many would come rushing at you, leaving you drenched with giddiness.

Many did come rushing at me today. Memories from yesteryears when I had spent some wonderful moments with these people around me. But instead of leaving me giddy, they left me wretched. Miserable. Angry that I let the threads break. Break they did because friendship needs holding on to – the tighter you do, the stronger it grows.

I aim to correct this - I won’t remain silent when I meet these folks for Holi the next year.

I knowingly broke a streak today – I didn’t upload a photo as part of a monthly challenge because I didn’t connect with the prompt. I was contributing anyway just for the sake of contributing – photos are not something I enjoy. I love taking photos, but I am not a master photographer. So why even try doing something daily that I don’t enjoy?

So neither didn’t I click a snap nor upload it.

I am also extremely tired today to spend any time writing significant nightly updates. So today, a quick observation will have to do.

I do not enjoy maintaining streaks. I do not enjoy taking photos without purpose. When tired, I cannot write anything profound. Or I cannot write. Period.

I have too many hobbies or interests that I want to undertake, much more than my schedule allows. I enjoy reading articles from the feeds/newsletters I subscribe to, reading/listening to books, interacting with social media posts, writing and coding on small projects. Even if I club the first three above as reading, it leaves me with many options. I am not even counting the unplanned movie show or wish to doodle. Today I decided I want to address this.

As I scoured the internet (mainly Reddit and YouTube) to find the solution to this not-so-uncommon problem, one suggestion I kept hitting against was to reduce the list. As Cal Newport suggests, I should have a primary and a secondary hobby. Anything more than that and “the overhead counterbalances the value the activity brings.

So what do I want to get rid of?

I do not think reading is something I can stop doing. I enjoy reading this, that and everything. After many trials, I have finally arrived at an effective setup for my reading process. Someday I will go into the details of this setup. But overall, I do not want to eliminate any of that.

Is writing even a hobby anymore? I do this as part of my daily routine and a winding down activity. I need not find time for this. I already have. And hence even this ain’t a problem.

So how do I juggle everything I want but haven’t got time to pick? The search for a solution continues.

Who knew iOS had built-in background sounds for rain, ocean, stream and few others? Plays even while playing music or podcasts or when the device is locked. Wonderful! Available under Settings > Accessibility > Audio Visual > Background Sounds (h/t Recommendo)

Tile. And not much else. #mbmar

If only it was this simple to zip some mouths. #mbmar

One of the questions people like to ask lexicographers is this: Can you sneak something into the dictionary?

Source - Dord: How a Non-Word Made it into the Dictionary →

I have stopped using YouTube on my phone for quite some time now. Even my iPad and laptop, I use it very carefully. I do not like what it has become, especially the home page. Google’s aggressive recommendations and creator’s ability to game it have made it home to clickbaity and idiotic content.

Google wants to make YouTube addictive, and I want to fight back. Here’s the way that worked for me.

I either access the video directly (if I know what I want to watch) or browse my Subscriptions page (when I don’t know what to watch). The home page is useless without history turned on. And so are other recommendations. Trust me; you do not want them.

Well, Google has managed to ruin the subscriptions screen too.

As if the recommendations for sensational videos weren’t bad, Google found another way to spike engagement or our addiction to the app - shorts. I have been vocal about my dislike for this form of content.

What’s worse is that Google seems to be aggressively pushing it on creators, making it more profitable in some manner. Now my subscription page is full of short videos, with no way to filter them out.

The high-quality videos are getting lost in this drivel of mindless shorts, even from the creators I respect. I do not know how some of the most intelligent minds are ok with this. I have seen this play out to written words – the long-form essays are lost amidst the hot takes and rants on social timelines.

Google has done the same to the last sane space on the platform. I can now simply get rid of my usage of this platform altogether.

Congratulations, Google, and thank you!

Caring for a kid and a puppy while home alone is not easy. With my wife out to the office, today was the day when I had to do exactly that for the first time. It has left me completely drained. It isn’t easy to write freely in such a state.

I try to focus on my thoughts, but my mind is half-sleep, waiting for me to slide down the bed. I know it won’t take much time for me to go into a deep slumber. Everybody around me already is. My mind asks me why can’t I.

Today also lent me a period of loneliness in the afternoon while my daughter and Snoopy were fast asleep. I worked and read in peace, which has left me with a lot of budding ideas to chew on. I thought I would meditate on one throughout the day and put my thoughts in words, but the current state of my mind won’t allow that. Ex-yawwwwnnn-hausted!

Though weary down to my core, I still love such a day. Any lone “me time” I can steal from my routine is worth its weight in gold. But alas, such moments have become rare.

Feeling secure is being together #mbmar

I have written spontaneously in this space for the last few days. Sure, there’s a schedule to it, but no structure. I show up at a fixed time and type away all the thoughts at the top of my mind. Most often, it’s a single thought that’s clouding my mind. But there are also days when I write about a few thoughts strung together. Then, as I begin writing on a particular day, I have no clue what I will write about, just like today.

I looked at the blinking cursor, and no thought jumped to the fore. Everything was mundane. Not something that I felt strongly enough to put into words.

It made me realize how difficult it is to be spontaneous while #writing. I had once noted in my diary that spontaneity in writing is priceless. It is. But it is not natural to me. The train of thought that passes by as I try to stitch the words together makes the job tad more complicated. Before I am through with an idea, my mind is already wandering to the other, more alluring one. I, then, write about neither.

Over the years, I have turned into a planned writer. I usually have a skeleton clear in my mind about what and how I want to say. The planning at times makes me numb.

That wasn’t the case when I began writing and publishing on my blog. I was an instinctive writer then – when an instinct hit me, I got rolling. I wrote till the time permitted, and the thoughts flew everywhere. I had a vague idea of what I wanted to comment on. Precisely what and how were determined as I typed along.

The posts I wrote then sure weren’t the best of my works.

Yet I want to find that writer within me again. He was fun. Next, lend him my experience from writing over these years. He will bring the ideas, and I will bring in the sanity. My anticipation for this space is to be that playground.

I hence append the note I had made. Spontaneity in writing is priceless. Just be prepared.

What a great test match between England and New Zealand! And I love that New Zealand won by smallest of the margins. I wasn’t anyway enjoying what England was doing to the test cricket. Not a big fan of Bazball I am. Brilliant start to the day! 🏏

After three weeks of bearing the beard, I shaved it off today. That act felt nothing short of tearing it apart from my face. These three weeks have elevated my respect for those who regularly sport a beard. Maintaining this beast ain’t easy. It grows willy-nilly. And twists and twirls. And bites the face. And scratches the lips. And pokes the nose.

I was done enduring all of that.

Even that wasn’t easy to do at home, either. The beard struggled with the face. The razor struggled with the beard. And I struggled with the razor. Cleaning the mess the mayhem left behind was no less than cleaning up a crime scene. It took a toll on my morale. I needed a nice warm shower to get back to my #life.

I am past my fascination for a beard.

Surprisingly, the clean-shaven me felt much less burdened, as if the beard weighed kilos. With the weight of the beard off my face, I walked more throughout the day. A nice morning walk. And a long evening stroll around the neighbourhood. I paused at a coffee lounge and sipped my coffee slowly. It felt good not to share it with my facial hair.

For a Monday, today was also unexpectedly productive. I could focus on work better. I do need to improve my way of closing tasks at hand. I like to be particular. I have my way of building a list and ticking the tasks off the list. Though it works for me, I have stopped doing it. It is time to bring out the notepad & the pen and place it on the table again.

There’s also an update on the meta concern from yesterday. Matt responded to my support request and has generously extended the trial by a week while he finds a fix for my payment issue. What that means is blog is up and running as before.

I am happy I didn’t have to give up on this beautiful writing interface. Sure, the issue isn’t resolved yet. But I hope Matt finds a solution before this trial period runs out. After all, the problem isn’t unique, and I assume it has a standard, tried-and-tested solution.

Walked across this cosy little cafe during my evening stroll. The aroma of coffee beans was simply too pure to ignore. I’ve now found another nice spot to read in silence. Yay!