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Excursions

Being normal is a privilege

I am stunned at how often someone calls somebody else “normal”, with a hope that it would belittle him or her. Why is being “normal” not ok? Normal of anything is absolutely fine.

Sure, your goals and aims from your life can be extremely high. But normalcy is not something to be mocked.

There are so many people around the world who would consider being normal a privilege. Earning normal wages. Owning a normal house. Looking, sounding or behaving like a normal person. Leading a normal life.

Yes, these are all privileges that the normal people enjoy. So next time someone says I am normal, am going to spread a nice, wide smile across my face and say “thank you”!

How can Google continue to deliver the GMail app on iOS with the attachment functionality that is so limited. And still get it through Apple. There’s just no way to attach any files from Dropbox or Files. And even files from Google Drive are only attached as link. Terrible!

Notes, Messages, Phone and Photos. These are the apps from Apple that I use on my iPhone. All others are developed by the third-party developers. I believe this pattern must be very similar for all the iOS users — underlines the privilege and the responsibility that Apple has.

I am fed up of reading the long posts from men that list down all the household tasks that, as per them, women do - as if they are the only tasks women can do. Funnily, they end it with “RespectWomen” hashtags.

Sorry, there’s no respect in your regressive thought. Sigh!

Nature paints in so many colours - but it pays special attention when it paints in white. It is gorgeous, it is healing.

Silence Within

What is silence? Is it the lack of any sound or is it the lack of any discernible sound? What do you need to attain calmness?

Today, I sat alone, reading for around an hour - time that I was the most focused in a very long time. I felt I was alone, I physically wasn’t. I realised this only once I was out of my trance.

I was surrounded by a persistent hustle-bustle of the regularities of a working day. People chattering over a cup of coffee. Muffled, at the same time distinctly recognisable, voices of the labourers working outside the window. Rambles of the passing trains every now and then.

There was a lot of sound, a lot of noise around me. But there was silence within - I have come to realise it works way better to calm one down than the silence outside.

Terry Pratchett's artistry with words

It is the passages like these from Terry Pratchett that leave completely in awe of his imagination. He can dream up craziest of the crazy, stupid ideas and completely word them into a believable prose. Brilliant!

“The forest of Skund was indeed enchanted, which was nothing unusual on the Disc, and was also the only forest in the whole universe to be called — in the local language — Your Finger You Fool, which was the literal meaning of the word Skund.

The reason for this is regrettably all too common. When the first explorers from the warm lands around the Circle Sea travelled into the chilly hinterland they filled in the blank spaces on their maps by grabbing the nearest native, pointing at some distant landmark, speaking very clearly in a loud voice, and writing down whatever the bemused man told them. Thus were immortalised in generations of atlases such geographical oddities as Just A Mountain, I Don’t Know, What? and, of course, Your Finger You Fool.

Rainclouds clustered around the bald heights of Mt. Oolskunrahod (‘Who is this Fool who does Not Know what a Mountain is’) and the Luggage settled itself more comfortably under a dripping tree, which tried unsuccessfully to strike up a conversation.”

The Promise of “instant”

Patience is a virtue that is rapidly getting extinct within us. Everything digital has trained us to expect everything instant. You want to read, watch, listen to, learn, earn? There’s an app for that.

We were ruined, further, by the advances in efficient service distribution at scale. You need things delivered - there’s a service for that. Groceries? Yeah, those are covered. Food? Cab? Stationery? Yep, we got those covered too.

Services would reach you earlier after a week or more, if at all they could reach you. It became days. One day was a stretch goal that was soon met for many. And next was hours. For many services, it is minutes now. 30 minutes or free.

We have all been ruined by this promise of “instant”. A detour of 15 minutes before the food is delivered is worthy of a lengthy rant at the service provider now. A delay of a day before one’s headphone is delivered is intolerable.

Days of patiently waiting for things we need, we want have long been lost. We are ruined by our lack of patience.

Martin Weigert has an interesting take on this - this is what he wrote while sharing this essay as part if his weekly newsletter at Meshed Soceity.

(…) there are at least 2 types of patience: Waiting for the pay offs of one’s work (whether on oneself or external projects), and waiting for things one needs. I consider the first type a virtue. The latter type however, seems to be mostly a mental hack to make a virtue out of necessity. Have to wait for 4 hours to get your 5 minutes at the doctor? Be patient! Have to wait one week to get the thing you bought online? Be patient! Have to wait one day until your bank transfer has been processed? Be patient! In these cases, there is nothing inherently virtuous or positive in waiting.

I do not disagree with any part of this. And I was indeed focused on the second type that he talked about because that’s primary what he face more often and so is what that tests us the most. It is important that we do not lose our sanity if things do go wrong while we wait for things and have to wait longer.

How ergonomical are the ergonomic mouse in reality - especially the vertical ones? I am seriously considering buying just to see if it helps. I am worried the frequent pains in the wrist are only to increase further. Not something I can live with given my profession.