Filmolia

Lately I've had that much more extra time as naturally comes with the holidays. For some reason, I've found it impossible to find joy in using the time to finally watch movies - watch the movies I hadn't had time for before - preferring instead to choose reading over movie-watching. Other than the fact that I have always been a book over movies or television person, there hasn't seemed to be anything movie-wise that I've been excited to watch. And that's weird, because when I had no time or opportunity to watch anything, I had wanted to. Remember my preview posts regarding movies I wanted to watch such as Besharam and Lootera? I have the time now, but do I want to watch these movies? No.

I don't know what it is. Maybe it's that effect of novelty, in part; you know what I'm talking about, but to specify: that phenomenon of wanting something more because we can't have it. Ah, that.

I also have this problem with seeing a movie long after the initial thrill that comes with first exposure fades away. This is what is happening to me now with regards to watching Ram Leela. I wanted to see it for a very long time, since 1. it's a SLB film, and I am a SLB film fan. and 2. it stars Deepika Padukone, and I am a reborn and finally out of the closet Deepika fan. (NB. By 'out of closet' I DO not mean I habour anything more than celebrity-fan admiration for the actor.)...but now that it's been out on the airwaves for quite a while and it's not news anymore, I don't feel so inclined to watch it. Meh.


Admittedly, I do still want to because it stars Deepika. I recently revisited one of my absolute favourite hindi films, Break ke Baad, which stars another of my favourite actors, Imran Khan. If you already do not know this, I have had a history of fangirling pretty hard for both Imran Khan and Ranbir Kapoor. My fangirling the former, however, died away with the grudging yet inevitable admittance that his acting could be improved up, and that he couldn't dance to save his life (a fact, however, adorably made up for by his own witty assertion of this fact).

But back to Break Ke Baad - I could go on and on about this movie, and you would not understand why since all the reasons why I love it so much are very personal reasons, along the lines of relating quite quite a lot. My inner-self squealed with joy and grinned happily all throughout my rewatching of the movie. Fix thy eyebrows, and don't consider me weird, please. Well, you can, 'cause I am... but still.

But there I was, lying awake in bed, though thoroughly tired, since it was the wee hours of night, and I was smiling to myself, inside. I sighed with contentment and satisfaction, flush with loads of memories and all that good stuff. And I thought to myself: I need to watch more of these favourite films; which other ones do I love as much as this?; Jaane Tu Ya....Anjaana Anjaani,.......even my very first favourite, Hum Tum.

Then another thought occurred to me. What if this is what it meant to grow older? Older yet carried forward by time to another place where everything else externally has changed? Music, media, movies, actors, storylines, themes. More concerning, would I become one of the (gasp) Old Generation that was stuck in an older era clutching what would be then considered oldies to my bosom, refusing to get with the times?

It boggled my mind. I considered, absently, why exactly I like the movies I do. Was it because these people channelled the inner me? Obviously the biggest factor was that I related hugely to what I was seeing on-screen. Boy and girl are best friends, girl falls for boy, boy doesn't realize, heartbreak, thunder, lightning, dancey dancey,  fight fight, love love, blah blah. Woopsidoo. Ok, obviously I'm a big fan of happy endings and romance and all, yet cannot bring myself to be all mushy about it while describing it. It's one of those things that should be kept for private moments in my opinion. Blehh. So anyways, as I was saying, yes I was all for romance and stuff, but the movies that REALLY made me swoon figuratively were those which were get-with-the-times, modern, practical and feasible. Ok. I'm not really explaining this to my liking, but whatever.

So these movies. They all seem to have this one thing in common: the younger gen of actors, i.e. my age group. Imran Khan, Ranbir Kapoor, Deepika Padukone, Sonam Kapoor...

Then I asked myself: am I less inclined to watch movies now because they are not casting these favourite actors in these movies? And if so, does this mean that when they have become old and antiquated spectres of the camera, and are playing mothers and fathers and uncles and aunts, I will turn to my old and antiquated copies of movies capturing their flush of youth era, and refuse to really like anything that belongs to the newer generation? I hope not. I don't want to be one of those oldies who do that, I always feel I'm perpetually young.

But then I look at SRK and think, how the hell did I ever fangirl him in the first place? Then I look at the next hottie of the times, and think, holy moly Varun could be my younger brother.

Damn.

Just For You (grin)

Tree

'I don't know what's happening to me, I have lost all my words.'

She just looked at me silently. I knew she knew what I was saying.

'It's almost as if, what I most enjoyed doing isn't something I really enjoy anymore. Despite that realization, though, I really want to.'

She looked at the sky. She sighed.

'I want to write. But it is rather like, writing doesn't want to be bothered anymore. Even if I want to bother it, it's resisting. I can feel it, or rather hear it, telling me to go away. It's sending out vibrations at me, telepathically telling me to get lost. I'm not sure if I should be sad or relieved. That's what confuses me.'

The corner of her mouth turned wryly. She knew exactly what I felt. And despite the frustrating silence, I didn't want it to be anything else. This is how it was with us. We just understood.

'I always feel that writing was my passion. But how could it be a passion if I let it go so easily? That would indicate I don't really want it, right? That I don't really care? Or maybe not. Maybe it's because I care too much, and I know I can't force it to happen. It would be like forcing someone you loved to serve you at every whim and fancy, always at your beck and call. Maybe.'

She giggled. Shrugged. Maybe yes, maybe no. May be. May. Spring.

'Well, yeah. Sure. Maybe you're right. I guess it's just a season where I can let the cold cover me down, where my thoughts buried over with snow can find its roots again, maybe let my thoughts simmer and stew, find itself anew. I'll always love writing, but writing needs time to nurture itself as well. I guess we'll find out.'

She, with her bare branches, seemed to nod. She loved her leaves, and would wait for them too.

Best Wishes, Everyone :)

Remember Now?

See song here: http://iq-butterflyeffect.blogspot.ca/2013/12/hai-jamalo-hunterz.html

Fly

That was the thing. You just never knew. Forever was so many different things. It was always changing, it was what everything was really all about. It was twenty minutes, or a hundred years, or just this instant, or any instant I wished would last and last. But there was only one truth about forever that really mattered, and that was this: it was happening.

The Truth About Forever - Sarah Dessen.

Gifted by Our Stars

While reading the Metro on the way home I came across this, and found it quite accurate with regards to some of the signs and people who fall under the starsign. Thought it would be quite jolly interesting to share it with you to cross-check.

CLICK ON IMAGE TO ZOOM.

Torment

Most of us chase after unrelenting angst simply because that perpetual dynamic of perpetual torment gives us reason to feel, reason to be.Our state of mind also follows Newton's Laws. It's not always the physicality that defines physics.  Often we refuse to let go simply because we fear and dread lapsing into a state of inertia wherein we cease to exist. Torment becomes our confidante and companion, validating our existence by its fuel of desire, and lack of fulfillment, & therefore purpose.

(In the style of Monsieur LaBeouf, this post has been plagiarized 

from myself)

The Truth About Forever

It's all in the view. That's what I mean about forever, too. For any one of us our forever could end in an hour, or a hundred years from now. You never know for sure, so you'd better make every second count."

Sarah Dessen.

Sleigh

Ever more frequently, the posts on my blog dwindle; the monthly count, if one chooses to look, are almost insignificantly negligible.

I've meant to write about a whole plethora of things, but for some reason I never get quite to it. That isn't to say that I have what seems to be going around as easily as the season's flu: writer's block. I don't. That I can certainly assure you and myself. I do write, and for myself, but Supercalifragilisticsexyalidocious has more and more been losing the 'sexy' that makes it all that much more unique, if not only in name, but in quality.

I couldn't quite explain it to you either, or perhaps I might try. I guess with the advent of busy-hood in life, I have dedicated my downtime toward other pursuits. More specifically, actually and literally spending it down (on my bed, mind you). And with the accompaniment of the lowering temperatures of Winter, of course what else could be better than cuddling in bed after a long day at work?

So back to the original train of thought: I've been meaning to write about my job; not the one which rendered me senselessly stressed out, but the new one, which is a total flip- I love it. I love it so much that I am incapable of putting forth the words to do this love justice.

Or perhaps it is just that creeping lethargy that has invaded my pores; the habituation of lazy that has possessed my musculature devoted to blogging.  Yes, perhaps, somewhat, if not entirely, it is this.

I have also meant to sing the praises of the wonders of the great outdoors. The snow! The wind! The blue! The twinkling lights of the season! The clouds! The moon (when spotted). Alas, I  have not. Mayhap this small blurb does something to cover the void that has gaped unacceptably, having demarcated no record of the wonders of this year's winter.

Nevertheless.

It has just occurred to me, also, that the year is actually almost reaching its end. I have therefore, two choices. I can make a great deal about this, and wax philosophical. Or I can take the other road, and decide that time is only a phantom of the psyche and is irrelevant in the big picture. Okay, so that may also be somewhat philosophical. Oh well.

I also meant to put down in writing the fact that I'm pretty glad with life as it is right now. Oh, I know, I did devote a post to this on Lucid, and you can traipse over the snowy hills to read my thoughts as soon as you are through with this bit of toboganning.

There's a funny word, if there was one. Toboganning. I miss doing that, by the way, the good old days of dragging the sled behind us as we trudge through the knee high snow to the top of the hill. Good times, indeed.

and then, weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!,
all
   the
        way
              down.

Sense

On the bus, homeward bound. Nain Parinde floating through the quiet sense of peace settled upon the other commuters on a half-filled bus in the dark evening speckled with twinkling evening lights. Somehow, suddenly, I realized I had been smiling. Smiling to myself, yes, but that simple quiet smile that is less a smile of facial musculature and more of the type surfacing from deep within. My sense of self was imbued with a great contentment.

It occurred to me that half my sense of being might be attributed to the music creating the right mod, and even more beautiful was the sheer coincidence of that exact song playing at that very moment, accompanying my skimming of pages of the old and well-thumbed notebook wherein I write these thoughts; reading old memories of a past self that had been waiting, longing, and dreaming...

The juxtaposition further heightened this sense of tranquility: the longing of the past superimposed on its fulfillment in present. That is when it occurred to me, in gauging the credibility of my mellowed euphoria, that while I was exquisitely content for various wonderful reasons, I could not yet say that I was entirely satisfied on all counts; lingering on periphery was still yet a great void that stretched on to a distance immeasurable, a lingering longing in hopes of reunion, a pause of bated breath -- it occurred to me, that this was contentment. This balance, so precarious, teetering, yet maintained, this acceptance, this gratitude, this pervading sense of self, in all ways possible, past, present and future, all threaded together through, within and extending beyond all sense of measure, yes, this was contentment.

11/12/13/17:45

Inspiration

I always seem to have this knack of 'falling at first sight' -- and by that I don't mean literally the romantic love that is regularly ascribed to the phenomenon of 'love at first sight'.

Those of you who are one of the 'special' ones, sorry my special ones, know exactly what I am referring to (well I have already written about it enough times, so yeah). I have discovered - the pleasant type of discovery we sometimes encounter in life which instill within us a contentment in the whole cacophony that life essentially seems to be; the kind where we can use that awesomely amazing word: serendipity! - that most of my lifelong and profound relationships (read: friendships) come into effect quite immediately.

Sometimes it just took a brief encounter which entailed a glare, a wink, a few words, a moment or period of mutual observation, and that was it.

In the last several months, as my readers might recall, I had embarked in a new 'mission', as I called it in a previous post. That mission had lasted all of two months, and it has definitely been quite an experience, both good and bad. The fact that I am moving on from it, however, means that the bad outweighed the good. But not with any lasting or lingering effect, thankfully.

In fact, the whole purpose of this post is because of the 'good'. In the last couple of weeks, I bonded with an amazing gentle and darling colleague; another one of those almost instant-friendships, just add water, type. I suppose that just goes to show that, eh cliche alert, things do happen for reasons. And moreover, this brief period, wherein the bad effects were at its height (and I mean WHOA-stress-elevator-rocketing high), served to only emphasize the strength of the connection.

She is also a blogger, and maybe that's one of the reasons we found a kindred spirit within one another. There are lots of other reasons, and since today is actually my last day in working with her on a daily basis, I deemed it quite appropriate to dedicate today's post to her (that and the fact that she told me today that she's been going through my posts and ahem, *humble moment*, has been inspired).

So, Miss S., this one is for you. Though our official time has ended, this is just the start of a beautiful thing! (Not just speaking of us -- I mean for you, life in general).

P.S. Thank you for not suffocating me entirely today.

Shiver

I am alone in the world, and yet not alone enough to make each hour holy. I am lowly in this world, and yet not lowly enough for me to be just a thing to you, dark and shrewd. I want my will and I want to go with my will as it moves towards action.

‘And I want, in those silent, somehow faltering times, to be with someone who knows, or else alone. I want to reflect everything about you, and I never want to be too blind or too ancient to keep your profound wavering image with me. I want to unfold. I don’t want to be folded anywhere, because there, where I’m folded, I am a lie.'

-Rilke

A Guest Post

Hear ye hear ye. *blows trumpet, unrolls scroll, knocks gavel*

I have written a "guest post" at the behest of my coblogger friend Ajay Kontham, and it has finally reached the stages of being posted!

I'd love for you all to head over to his blog where it is posted to read it, but before that I will also inform you that Ajay wrote a prelude to posting my actual piece (his own bit of saying Thanks, and also an explanation to his own readers) which you can (I recommend that you do) read here.

As for my actual piece of writing, you can read it here.

Thank ye kindly.

Queen of Dreams

Looking back, I could not point to one special time and say, There! That's what is amazing. We can change completely and not recognize it. We think terrible events have made us into stone. But love slips in like a chisel - and suddenly it is an ax, breaking us into pieces from the inside.”

(Rereading one of my favourites) Queen of Dreams, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Blank Unity of Uniqueness

Tonight it snowed. A wind howling through the corridors of streets -- racing, searching, or running away from something else altogether? Then the skies opened up and the white began to fall. Tonight, indeed, it snowed.


Earlier, it seemed a tentative entity. A light dusting that trickled down almost, seemingly, by accident. Perhaps like a new cook in the kitchen unsure about how much salt to add, and hesitant to add more, for fear or ruining what has already become a work well done. The wind quickly swept away the new addition, almost so that you weren’t quite sure if it had really fallen.

But if one stopped and looked closely, the evidence was clear. In the chiselling lines of the street edges, between the flat of the road and the slight rise at the curb, white lines gleamed. Like ruler lines of cocaine ready to be inhaled, the white dusting beckoned, attempting to tempt to the other side.


The other side of winter, where we must bid adieu to the lasting rays of warmth residue of months gone by. Before the sun sank with aplomb, and before the wind chuckled its way through the streets gloating over its solitary reign, daylight held us back from crossing the line. The sun came in when it seemed we were about to take the other side, each time pulling back the clouds to announce its presence, in case we might have forgotten.


Could we have forgotten you, whom we most miss before you are gone? The question echoes upon the blanketed white that now adorns the forlorn asphalt. Forsaken we have been, but we cannot cry; we know this abandonment well for it is the routine shift of day and night. We know that for the brevity of cold darkness, we have yet that solace of morning light.


This is the quietude of winter’s cacophony. Amidst the thunder of wind in the trees, silence pervades. Silence the deletion of noise, accompanying the deletion of colour, represented by the stretching horizon of white. Blank.

Keep still for a moment. Do you hear it? Feel it? The chorus of a thousand million tiny voices, as they are shovelled away without another thought, a miracle in itself for each snowflake has never existed before and shall never be again. How do we know? We cannot count each that falls, as unable are we to trace each tear that ever had been shed, or count each star that ever blinked, or remember each dream that floated away beyond unmoving eyelashes. Should we not try? Tonight it snowed.

Moderob

Technically, I don't really subscribe to boredom. Not really. Of course, by careless habit, I do use the word to describe a certain circumstance, for example, I was caught out recently by having declared that my 'Sunday was quite boring'. So perhaps to say otherwise may seem somewhat hypocritical. But I aim to elaborate on what I mean by not really meaning it.

In a nutshell, I have this simple habit of being able to just simply think. That's it.  And I do realize I have perhaps already discussed this issue of boredom before, however there is much in life that does require repetition, so I continue. I think. I mean, I can simply sit, and lose myself totally in my mind. I do this quite often, no matter where I am, and in what circumstances I may be amidst.

In fact I am discussing it right now simply because I caught myself doing this. I had opened my blog to a new blank post, and sat for a few still minutes, just trying to lose myself in that realm where that certain mood and state of mind would open up to me. It's a portal of sorts, I guess. So there I was, just vaguely thinking this and that, remniscing about certain things -- such as the fact that just a few minutes earlier I had gone back to my very first post on Super and how strange it was to contemplate the various personas one could be all within one body -- and then I blinked. That's when I noted what it was I was doing. Thinking.

Sometimes I wonder what those around me might think, observing this girl simply sitting, quite still, and doing nothing, but seeming entirely absent, I'd hazard to guess.

Well, sometimes I catch a glimpse of myself when I am doing it. Sitting on the bus, for instance, heading home, and thinking, thinking, thinking, and it's evening and then I see a familiar face, and hey, that's me reflected in the window pane. Hello sexy.

Oh yes. I do have to admit, I probably spend a good deal of time observing my reflection. I think it's another mode of operandi, being able to reflect. Pun intended, yet this remark was quite genuine, nevertheless. I find it opens up another portal I guess, when I'm looking back through my own eyes. It's also a bit of vanity; I admire myself quite shamelessly, I like what I see. But again, often I lose myself in thought and don't really realize what I am literally looking at.

So that's why I don't really believe in boredom. Because no matter what, even if I don't have a book or music to keep me entertained, I always have my mind. And that's the best accessory a girl* can have.




*Not to exclude the other gender; context meant relative to author's gender.

Let There Be Light

In regards to my last post pertaining to the phantom streetlight, I tried something amazingly weird, but quite expected from me.

One evening when I got off the bus, and then routinely crossed the road to start that walk along that same curve of the sidewalk, the song I had been listening to ended, and suddenly out of the blue (well of course out of the blue, since I set my music player on random shuffle) "that" song started to play. I'm going to just refer to the song in particular as "that" song because my god it's one of those songs that just act like wind beneath my wings, it's one of "those" songs that make me feel like falling in love again (the odd thing is that the refrain actually says something along those lines). Consequently, I had crossed the road to grin to myself in delight, and entered into that feeling of mine where I'm absolutely about to start dancing on the streets all alone (and yes alone I was at that time of evening, thankfully), and the wind was just so, you know? Like it wasn't all that cold and blowing that frigid arctic wind, it had that...extra bit of something, a little bit of warmth that if you were in an optimistic mood, you'd breathe right in with contentment, and forget that it had been almost snowing earlier in the day.

Anyways, in that mood, I was ready to smile at everyone and anything, and I sort of was, I guess, and I was coming around that bend in the sidwalk and for whatever weird reason I decided to look up at my friend the Streetlight before I actually reached it, and wave and point at it and say "ON!" in my head and lo and behold, it lit up brightly. I blinked to myself, but I was so buoyantly happy for that bit of time that evening that I didn't really think twice about it, in fact the amazement of that actually happening just meshed right in with my already happy mood. The other streetlights glowed their usual orangey hue somewhat dimly, in my opinion, whereas my friend the Streetlight was that bright fluorescent white.

 And I know this is really a weird thing to be discussing, but I'm sharing it simply because it really happened. In fact, I decided to experiment again the following days. The next day, however, wasn't that great a day for me, and I ended up being super exhausted and overly emotional by the day's end. I trudged my way home in my growly state and my friend decided to go out completely as I passed under it. The next day was the same. The next consecutive day, I was again in a better frame of mind, though definitely nothing like that buoyant evening I had almost danced my way home when "that" song had come on. This time though, I was prepared, or I thought I was. I had chosen to play "Stereo Love" for the fact that I really love it and then as I was making my way around that bend, just before I approached My Friend, I suddenly hesitated at the song; I got a flashback and a realization that in fact the lyrics aren't that happy in context. In that moment, the damn Streetlight went out again. Sigh.

Out, Out, Brief Candle

I sort of meant to write this a very long time ago, actually each time this event happens, which is pretty much every weeknight, and that too beginning quite a few years ago...

As we know, I take the public transit. I love taking the public transit, for a variety of reasons, amongst one being that I couldn't fathom having to take control of a wheel and direct my attentions to the work of navigating the rush hour traffic every evening homeward bound. Rather, I relish the freedom of relinquishing responsibility to the operator of the bus, so that I could lose myself in my myriad thoughts, feelings, and daydreams..

Each evening when I get off my final bus, I have a 3 or 4-minute walk through the inner streetways of the neighbourhood to reach home...and often I thoroughly enjoy this walk (which explains why it may extend to 4 minutes).

There is one thing that occurs, however, that does seem strange. Each evening as I traverse the sidewalk, in a concave semi-circle bypassing the park, all alone in my own world with music and darkness all around, as I reach one certain spot, that one particular streetlight flickers out.

Now, I've passed it at various times, so it's not simply a matter that at a specific time at night it goes out. Also, the other streetlights along the street all remain alight. Also, there have been occasions where there have been persons walking ahead of me, for whom the light still remains oblivious, i.e. still lights. It is only when I approach, it decides to extinguish.

This is a phenomena that has occurred to me every evening I have passed it, and each time it happens, I remember that this is something I want to write about. And, this is also a phenomena that I have experienced many years ago, and also, with regards to certain other streetlights I have happened to stand under, or as a matter of fact, lights within a certain room flickering, and if it is worth throwing in, the lights within the trains and buses I have sat upon...

Balmy

I don't know what it is, but the weather has been absolutely amazing the last several days...mild (as in not the expected freezing temperatures due for this time of year)...and lots of rain.

Of course, the rain has its negative side effects. All yesterday and the day before as I was travelling, I kept hearing the piercing sound of various sirens; ambulances, police, fire-trucks. And yesterday right out of the office, the traffic at the intersection in front my office building was unbelievable. Cars just packed up for as far as the eye could see, for the longest time ever.

But I didn't care. It was soooo windy and yet soooo nice, because the wind wasn't cold.  Aye haye. And now it's November. Sigh...let us hope that the November fairies bring us something special.

Intense

I know I am seemingly always overconfident and righteous, and that I act all "miss-know-it-all"-- and no, I am not saying these things about how I am in any sort of mockery either for anyone who might feel so: I know that I am this most often of the time.

Yet often, I find it difficult to figure out if it is who I really am, or who I am because it is my "armour", as in my defense mechanism... I know it is definitely partly because of a defense mechanism...and one that I have cultivated so much over the years that it has become a second skin that seems to be who I really am. And that is something which I have let happen self-consciously, so that everyone just figures that is who I am. That's not to say this is any excuse for being this way...it being a second skin is no excuse to say it isn't who I am. It's still who I am. But it is somehow an armour for that side of who I am which I refuse to let others see; if they are not able to see it, they cannot reach it, and if they cannot reach it, they cannot use it, abuse it, nor destroy it. 'It' of course, being me.

Vulnerability is that state we guard most closely. We do not want to become attached because it opens up our portal for vulnerability. And we learn to guard this vulnerability through experience. Experiences which for the most part we would categorize as unpleasant, because they have taught us pain, and it is through this pain that we have witnessed our vulnerabilities as never before, and therefore we, within ourselves, have seen it for what it is and how to shut it up tight.

 This was meant to be a personal anecdote, and as usual when I write, it ends up going general, and vague, and the one(s) I intend to have this said to would likely be the one to tune out and get lost and distracted. I think, also, that me writing vaguely is another form of defense mechanism, because I am writing about my vulnerabilities for all and sundry to see, though I really had intended it for one. I could have certainly written to the person directly, but for some strange reason I felt that this was a topic I could possible learn the lesson I mean to teach myself more emphatically if I put my failings out on the laundry line.

My lesson is of humility. (And interestingly, two of my soul-siblings have expressed similar thoughts via their blogs (i.e. vulnerability, attachment, self-weaknesses, and humility); as often I am not certain if it is that we simply feed off one another's thoughts or that we truly experience the same at once..)

I have hidden my humility through my pompousness. In being a in-your-face hyper and confident girl, the girl who always has an answer and who always refuses to back down from her arguments, I seem to have done too well a job of hiding my vulnerability, so much that it has somewhat backfired on me; the ones who really need to know me, and who I really am, I am not certain if they believe that me exists. Because I myself haven't been able to figure out who this "me" is.

But (again like those others) I have acknowledged that it is a perpetual journey of self-discovery. And much of my established idealism that I have grown with love like it were my own secret garden of roses, has been one that also comes with its thorns: in letting my feet off the solid earth, in dreaming of the "ideal" I had cultivated so many expectations, so many that they could never possibly be truly practical.

Perhaps that is why it is amazing that I have found sanity in the fruition of the main dream. And that I am learning to be practical through this one dream; to let go of many others which were frivolous in many ways...and yet....

And yet, what? I don't know really.. I am writing all this without forethought, you see. I don't even know where I really am going with this. I guess, I am learning that we cannot hope to establish who we are at any given time. It is impossible. And yet, we are constantly evolving and learning. And it is through our responsibilities and relationships that we most learn to gauge ourselves. We cannot hope to hide in a cave in order to survive, simply because the person we are is too volatile to indulge in interaction. It is through interaction, and through both bad and good experience that we best learn who we are. It is through the struggle where we learn what needs to go, and through the good that we learn what we should keep.

I am addressing this discourse to a number of people, certainly. But again, this is a reminder to myself. I was in fact the one who many years ago (I seem to have been such a wise person when I was so idealistic, and yet I was naive? What a paradox)... I think it was best noted (by myself) when I observed that for a rose to grow stronger and more beautiful, it needs to be clipped and (I am stretching for the right description right now; I know I summed it up beautifully in a line that I posted on Golden Moments, let me look)...Ok found it:

Pruning the rosebush and cutting out what isn't needed makes the rose stronger!

So in summary: ... (and this is specifically for the one I had originally intended this message for)

I don't mean sarcasm, or mockery, by learning to be a better person, nor is it a slight to say that I am learning to become a better person through what I am discovering because of our interactions. It isn't a bad thing necessarily that the bad is brought out through them, but that more of who I am is starting to come out in the open, lots of traits that had been long-dormant because they had always been hidden behind the armour., and lots of new responses that never had reason to exist before that are now alive and new in the world like a newborn baby, yet to learn how to be clothed.  I mean it in the best possible way, to be a better person for all in question.

GC

As I said a few posts back, I've lost my appetite. And that still persists even to today. I really can't say what it is, it isn't as if I am depressed or anything.

But yes, I have found that my one solution in the past few weeks comes through just one form of food: the grilled cheese sandwich. I cannot tell you how much I enjoy my grilled cheese sandwich. I will attempt to demonstrate: often in a day, if possible, I will consume this as repast for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I never tire of it. Thus far.

Each time I visit the kitchen to ponder over what I should eat, despite inspecting the fridge and pantry and considering a number of other, much more 'extravagant', meals, I always end up simply taking out the bread, putting on the frying pan, and going about the now routine of preparing my grilled cheese sandwich. Butter both sides, cheddar cheese to get all ooey-gooey, onions (a must), chillis and green peppers...sometimes tomatoes, sometimes pizza sauce, always spicy and crispy.

And my kitten enjoys the crusts. Meow.

Wind

I know that my lack of presence might be noticed (and has been thus far by a certain particular few; see previous post), and it goes without saying that this hearty voyager is on another mission conquering another part of the world. Consequently, my time has been re-allotted towards this, and the remaining time is devoted to eating and sleeping.

And every morning now, as I step out into the grey morning and welcome the sun as it enters the horizon, I cannot help but grit my teeth together as the wind blows gustily through my very marrow: winter is definitely on its way.

Brr.

Kindred Spirits

This is a post that should have been posted yesterday, simply to be strict on the date for it's aptness. However, the content itself does not need be restricted to this rule, as it exemplies itself not just on one day of a year, but in every moment of every day of the year, as you will soon come to understand.

From a very young age, I had always been a prolific reader, so much that my grandmother, when she came to stay with us, would often complain that the girl would go crazy, since reading so much apparently makes a person lose their mind. That, I realize may seem illogical on one hand, and on the other many of you who do know me well might be smirking and thinking, she was, afterall, correct.


And of course, by the third grade I was already squinting at the chalkboard despite sitting at the front row, and it became apparent that I was in need of corrective lenses since my eyesight had been impaired by my obsession with reading.

One of my earliest pieces of literature that had become so ingrained with who I was as I grew up was written by Lucy Laud Montgomery, a very Canadian writer, who was made popular by her character: Anne Shirley, best known in Anne of Green Gables.

Anne was a small red-haired child, an orphan, and one who had a way with approaching hardship and life in general. She was one helluva talkative and imaginative girl. (You see why I like her?) One of her "ideas" which gelled with me most strongly, even up till this moment in writing (well of course it must have, for I would not be writing of it otherwise) was her concept of "kindred spirits".

Kindred Spirits are two people that make a special connection by sharing a bond that has joined them by the means of an experience that has drawn them together on a higher level of consciousness. This connection can be from the same experience at the same time or two separate experiences similar in nature.

Having read that, I am certain a few of you, dear readers, feel some sort of lightbulb of awareness light up. Because of course, in writing this, I mean to emphasize on the beautiful phenomenon of kindred spiritship I share with you.

It happened to me a few weeks ago, actually, just sitting randomly and thinking (something I do often). And
as I let my mind linger about, it came upon the memory of "kindred spirits" and somehow suddenly I sat up a bit straighter, and felt happy.

For, of course, I realized, that after some time, I had managed to make some very special bonds with some very special people, and for whatever reason it was a revelation that shot a pure dose of "happy" into my very bloodstream.

The special thing is that these friendships happened instantaneously. Maybe the actual forged bond that now exists did not happen right away, no, but there was inexplicably something more and something that tickled the mind, and somehow the very soul, the first time I came across the other's spirit.

There are some friendships that are good friendships, but they are those which somehow just exist for the sake of convenience, and then you have those friendships...which almost feel less defined by the very name "friendship" because they seem to be so much more, even while only being friendship...sometimes you can talk and talk and talk about what makes it special, and never ever come close to being able to really do it justice.

Sometimes I feel that we, kindred spirits, exist in a realm beyond mortality, that our existence and bond coincides with that force that exists beyond causality itself. That somewhere up there, out there, above everything else, where the stars are so close but yet so far left behind, we have each been neighbours, cut out from the same section of material of life-force, so much that we've been one at one time, and our meeting here in this world is only a flicker of memory as we meet one another again. This is how I feel about love and soulmates, and it cannot be so far from this that even our kindred spirits are the same.



This post is dedicated to my kindred spirits. You know who you are.

No Moral of the Story

It was just about twilight, that time when the day met the night and embraced, where the one could not be distinguished from the other, because they had so become one, just for that moment, when the rest of the world seemed oblivious to this reunion, busy with their own.

Across the sky tinted with fading magenta and blushing peach upon the darkening blues, separating from the circling above, the silhouette approached and with a flutter of wings, the dove was at the windowsill.

Quietly, the flame flickered a welcome, observing how her eyes seemed to shine with an exuberance imbued from her adventures in the sky, reflecting the light of the flame.

The flame said to the dove, 'Tell me, O Dove, why do you return here each night?'

The exuberance in the dove's eyes dimmed. Her heart seemed to have stopped breathing, the smallest flicker of doubt, as the memory of another time when her heart had seemed beyond repair returned, a time when he had asked the same question.

The flame quietly said, 'I wish for you so much more than I can give. I hold you down, I cannot fly.  I am wingless, bound to the earth by my reality. I am not able to soar with you, see the same dreams from the height at which you dance happily upon the clouds.  Tell me, Dove, why should you be also shackled to my reality? With the winds, you rise high, and yet in the same one gust, I extinguish and am lost.'

The dove had stilled, her heart brimming with emotion. Her beak, she opened, yet knew not what to say. The flame flickered, for he knew her heart, had known it even while he had given her his own.

'You come here each day happy after spending hours with your friends, laughing, flying, with stars in your eyes. I cannot be like them, I am not like them. I am element; you are creature. For all our love, we cannot be. Why do you want to come here to me, why do you wish to be with me? Surely you know this: we are different, we cannot be.'

The dove refused to look at him, instead looked upon the sky. Her sky. The sky where she danced with joy at the pure joy of the knowledge of the one she had to call her own. The sky where she soared high and far, glimpsing the beauty of colours which burst upon the horizon, bright and orange, reminding her of the one in her heart. Where her fellow birds teased her, making her blush and laugh, for they knew not who her special one was, but knew it made her fly higher, stronger, faster, putting a light and confidence in her that never existed before. Where in dark times, stormy nights, charcoal clouds and gusty winds, she had only to look down to see his constant reassurance alight below; her oasis of calm, her sanity. The skies where her fate had assigned her but where she had always felt lost within and alone. Always alone. Before him.

The dove turned her gaze from the inky indigo, whispered, 'Shall I go then? Is that what you wish?'

The flame stilled. Why should want be distinguished and so different from what was practical? Why had the questions of their differences come up to spoil their little time together, and more so, why had he voiced them? He hesitated.

'I cannot be with you because I have so little to give. I am who I am and it is beyond my ability to change. Everything I touch becomes ruined, destroyed. Surely you, O Dove, you of all most know this best, you the one I have hurt already once with who I am.'

'Once?' The dove whispered, with her eyes glistening.

 'Once surely you recall that time I burnt you - I should never forget, for I regret it each and every day. It makes me pause each day when I consider you soaring above, so free, why I am in every way wrong for you.'

'Not only once, dear flame. Not only once you have hurt me, and the pain of your fire is the least of them all. You do so now; you have so much that you give me, so much more within you that you dare not show. And tonight, you pain me most.'

'See, dove, how then I am not for you. I say not what you wish to hear. I cannot soar with you upon the clouds to join with you in the dreams you embroider.'

A silence fell, like no other before. Bittersweet, filled with unspoken words, falling hopes. Without another moment, she took off from the sill, and disappeared in the night.

The day had dawned, yet the flame shone on

Its wick still yet alight

It scanned the skies with tired eyes

Looking for his love in flight

Nothing passed, as hours passed

Only a passing cloud

And he sighed, for he knew 

His beloved was too proud

But soon had gone too many a day

And worry made him grim

my foolish dove, though I love

Without her I grow dim

In the distance, a keening call

Echoed as dusk fell

A mourning song, of love's lament

The dove had yet to tell

Written in continuation to Moral of the Story, posted here.

Strong of Heart

Hardship is nature's way of weeding out the faint of heart.

Quite frequently, with the spreading of death and destruction across our world, the question arises: how, if there exists a merciful almighty power of any kind, could such calamity be allowed to happen?

Logic often supersedes emotion, in fact, in its quintessential acts independently. The laws of evolution as they have been permitted to be known in generalization often emphasize upon the fundamental, 'survival of the fittest'.

The greater power, if so exists, may be not more than a scientist that dabbles in a hobby, or perhaps even a passion, for art - for the beauty encountered in much of our daily life is such that we cannot but help remark upon it. But scientist he most assuredly is, for if he has created anything, it would be the laws which govern our world, physically, metaphysically, and perhaps metaphorically - and otherwise.

He is the programmer, writing code which easily loop, executes, and performs conditional if and then commands. If it goes up, then it must come down. If it is born, then it must die. And that is where it comes in: the balance of life.

For the perpetuation of this species relies on the fundamentals of survival; the fit are defined as those who survive, and yet the condition to survive is to be fit. Therein exist conditions which test the population in ceaseless and incessant scenarios, so seemingly randomized yet so profound - and rare and therefore unprepared for - that understanding is often beyond our capacity, let alone acceptance.

For we are governed by hormones, the chemicals programmed to induce reaction, responsiveness, to perform this way dependent on stimuli. We are markedly made human by our ability to feel, emote, to communicate our sentience with a modicum of intelligence and emotion.

Logic then dictates that external stimuli of negative connotation, or perceived as such by our developed humanity, induces hormonal conditions to set in motion corresponding emotions: despair, disappointment, anger, despondence, remorse, resignation, fear, etc. These are such that can, in excess, tip the balance upon which our threshold for survival rests. It gives opportunity for us to reliquish our hold on our own health and well being; for us to be that much less careless about our safety; it means we are the weak -- and the weak are weeded out.

So keep in mind, when next you're sad, or struggling through hardship, wondering why. It's the test, the game, the way of life; hang tough, fight on, be strong. Survive.

Little Bits of Happy

Everything in the world is comprised of tiny particles of positivity. We often take the face-value of what we encounter, judging the larger object without seeing the small bits of good which comprise it. They say there is a silver lining in everything. It's just up to us to figure out which lens we choose to see through in order to focus the view to find it. If we can find logic in going to the eye doctor to determine the strength and weaknesses of our eyes, why don't we accept that our perspective also needs the right prescription? When we perceive negativity, perhaps all that is required is a twist of the microscope to sharpen the focus to see for ourselves that without the obscuring blur there really is a lot of good we just refuse or fail to see.

Diary of a Besharami

a.k.a. Why Being A Girl Rocks

Many years back, when I was a young thing fresh in the land of university, I had taken on the task of finding myself the appropriate books for each course. Of course, being the struggling student, I put off buying each book new; the network of buying and selling used textbooks is one we are acquainted with.

For a certain book, the library had a waiting list that would span the circumference of the planet a few times, and somehow it was always on hold. On the one fateful day that I had been visiting the library, while standing at the Returns counter, my gaze happened to fall upon the cart of books sitting behind the counter. The cart of books that had just been returned, and were waiting further sorting pertinent to their individual fates.

The cart upon which the one textbook I had been wanting and waiting for sat.

I cast my eyes this way and that. No one seemed to notice the fireworks going off around that book. Then I did some mental pacing. That book was right there, and for all the good it did, no one yet knew about the waiting list that spanned the circumference of the planet a few times. Not yet.

Casually, nonchalantly, I made myself known to one of the library helpers standing behind the counters. I politely inquired if I could possibly have one of the books sitting behind the counter. Yes, she told me pleasantly, which book would I like?

YES YES YES, I mentally did a few cartwheels and fist-pumped to high heaven, THIS BOOK IS MINE.

That one, I pointed calmly. She handed it over. I caressed the title lovingly. You are finally mine, I telepathed to it.

I quickly scouted the area, sure that any time soon, a phalanx of men in black suits would approach with a marching band, ready to commend me and present the Nobel Prize for Innovative Thinking to me.

Or not.

Anyways, so I did what was expected, and took the book to be checked out. Just a few minutes and I'd be outta there, with the book that no one would see ever again until I was through with it; planning to renew and renew my hold on it until the cows came home.

Beep. The computer hiccuped.

'Uh, you have an overdue fine. Unfortunately, because it exceeds a dollar, you can't take out any books until this fine is paid. You want to pay it now?'

My eyes bugged out of my head. WHAAAAAAAAAAT? OK fine, keep calm and let's pay it.

Well, wouldn't you know. That's the day I had no money on me. Nothing but two cents worth. Funny. The thing about the library, it's not the bank. There's no ATM machine, and they don't take plastic. Cash and change only. Thank you for your consideration. ONLY? ONLY I don't have any moneyyyyyyyy!

I stood there, the world swirling about, the ecstasy of my apparently premature triumph ebbing away. All I needed was a little less than two measly dollars, can you believe that? $1.75 standing in the way of me getting the book; in the way of my capacity to study from the textbook; in the way of my passing the course; in the way of my life as a university student, and who will then become a failure and be traumatized for the rest of my LIFE! The enormity of that small amount struck me hard in my heart. It almost shattered.

The alarm reaction that activates during potentially life-threatening emergencies is called the fight or flight response. If you are caught in ocean currents, your almost instinctual tendency is to struggle toward shore. You might realize rationally that you're best off just floating until the current runs its course and then, more calmly, swimming in. Yet somewhere, deep within, ancient instincts for survival won't let you relax, even though struggling against the ocean will only wear you out and increase your chance of drowning. Still this same kind of reaction might momentarily give you the strength to lift a car...

Let us take a moment to remember that this is the Diary of the Besharami, and all thoughts, acts, and behaviours herein shared are to be taken with this knowledge and precludes material which may shock, embarrass or render the reader such like.

I refused to give in.

All I needed was $1.75, right? Not much. And when you consider it, it's just a collection of a bunch of quarters ($0.25). A quarter to the average middle class person is not actually considered to be all that much. We would drop a quarter and not really miss it.

In the space of ten minutes later, I stood at the counter with $1.75.

Now I have to let you in on the secret. What I did is something I shouldn't be proud to be telling anyone. Mind you, I didn't steal a wallet, nor rob a child of his lunch money. What I did do was circulate about the library, and approached females browsing alone. I then smiled sheepishly and abashedly, in a hushed voice, asked if they would be able to spare a quarter. 

If you happen to be a female living in the Americas who is not a misanthrope, agoraphobic, or lutropublicaphobic, you will likely have some semblance of an idea about the psychology of my queries.

For everyone else, here is the dirt: In being approached by a younger female, who is asking for exactly and only a quarter in a state of embarassment, one will assume that that female is experiencing an emergency involving the female reproductive system.

The public washrooms/restrooms/toilets in this city boast vending receptacles attached on the wall of the female washroom which provide feminine hygienic products for those in need, all at the cost of a quarter. The males reading this may be familiar with the sight, as they have their own version vending contraceptive products. Do not ask me how I know.

Aaactually, on second thought, I am going to have to explain that since with that last sentence I have condemned myself to your inclination to believe that my besharampan extends to possessing this knowledge via my own personal sin. Well, excuseee me. Contrarily, I am familiar with the existence of condom-selling-boxes in the gents because one of my friends, back in the day, used to bug me, the way friends do, by stealing possessions of mine (to wit: shoes that I remove while studying) and hiding them in the mens washroom, assuming that I wouldn't dare go get them. Little did he know. Pshh.

 So yes, what I did was ask random women for 25 cents, and they gave me, thinking I  needed to buy feminine hygienic product ASAP.  I didn't coerce nor did I steal. They gave of their own free-will. And, in the process, I amassed the amount of money I needed to pay my fine and get the book. True story, yo.

As I left the library, I almost heard the sounds of that marching band....

Farctate

Lately, I have been kind of fed up of the whole process of eating. I'm not dieting or watching my weight, mind you. I've just lost the relish for eating.

It's not even just the actual act of eating. I haven't cooked in a long while, neither do I feel like doing so. I go in the kitchen, open the fridge and feel a sense of dissatisfaction or distaste, and shut it again. I don't enjoy food that I buy from outside either. I feel a sense of disgust at the very idea of eating outside food, which alawys tends to be unhealthy: fried, salty, sugary...

Just thinking about it makes me feel "ughh". It's some form of lethargy with regards to consumption. I don't know what it is. But it's been hanging about for a long while recently.

I do eat. I realize I have to. I'm fine with small doses of the stuff: sandwiches, wraps, granola bars. What I have no problem with though is drinking lots of water. For some reason that's the only thing I really do crave. That nice, refreshing, soothing taste of water.

Stray

They say that it's love that makes one feel beautiful. To be loved. But what happens when you suddenly see yourself through the eyes of the person who loves you, and you don't like what you see?

The Painted Drum

Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could."

— Louise Erdrich

Hypnopompic

In the last few days, maybe weeks also, I've been experiencing slight headaches. Not the jackhammering types that render one incapable of any action, but the dull hovering types that just tiptoe their ways in and set up shop before you realize you're squinting and pressing the bridge of your nose or that spot at your temples.

Of course, when I say you, I mean me.

The onset has seemed somewhat inexplicable, with no really specific reason. For a while I had been attributing the headaches to the way the weather keeps changing, cold and hot. I always do get a bit ill whenever this happens, nothing new.

I've always had lots of nights in the past month where I haven't been able to sleep. I'd endured that restless sleep that is probably very well known with many people who are perpetual reminiscers and ponderers. Again, I'm never really sure why exactly some nights I am able to sleep and some nights I'm just tossing and turning and no matter what, sleep never comes until that strange time when it's neither night nor is it yet dawn..

One thing I do know, however, is I cannot sleep with light. Well, actually I can, but the circumstances would have to be just a certain way. Either I'm extremely tired, or I'm in that sluggish lethargy that accompanies me in the afternoons when I've eaten and sitting in a pool of warm sunshine. Siesta mode.

But at night, in bed, in my room, I need darkness. That extra pale light that filters into the room, creeping through the blinds, glowing behind the curtains, reflecting on the walls... once the quintessence of darkness has been diluted, my mind is not able to rest.

Last night, I was actually pretty tired. My eyes had that dry tiredness that simply beckoned at sleep. But despite having drifted off to sleep, in the nocturnal silence, I sensed the footsteps of that approaching spectre before it actually arrived. Even in the dark, I was reflexively squinting my eyes and head to the little light that was magnified by its mere presence. The headache was coming.

That's it. I couldn't take it, I told myself. ENOUGH is enough. I got up and in the dark, eyes still fussily closed, I fumbled about in my basket of  freshly laundered clothes, and found the black pillowcase I knew was sitting there, and tied myself a blindfold.

WHAT a difference. I cannot tell you what an amazing night of sleep I had. I have this tendency of waking up right at the crack of dawn, when the morning light starts filtering in, and my cat also usually is up and about and she always comes in sniffing and jumps up to sit at her pillow at my window and spends hours of impending morning just watching outside and meowing quietly at the birds. I'm a morning person, so I've always just reveled that much more in those quiet mornings. But, this morning I didn't awake. I was so entirely in the crutches of deep sleep and up till that hour I finally awoke and got out of bed, I was really SLEEPING. My god, it felt wonderful. And it still feels wonderful. The difference is just MINDBLOWINGG.

Don't underestimate sleep, yo.

Diary of A Besharami

Often in the public washrooms* there happens to be that one stall with the lock broken, or just plain busted off. That's my stall.

Oh, I didn't mean to say that I was responsible for such a depraved act of vandalism. No, indeed. I do have my limits. But rather, that's the stall I use for my... business. No, no, not selling weed. (Or other suchlike.)

I don't like using public toilets (*:I had once been asked, by my very Yankified relative, why I call it a 'washroom'. I logically laid out the fact that one often uses the utilities to wash one's hands and face. He insisted it's called a bathroom. I put forth the fact that no bath existed in the room. He refused to budge, stating that a bathroom without a bath was called a half-bath. Anyways, that is just one of a few reasons of why I just simply call the washrooms "toilets" here forth). I like cleanliness, and using such utilities often represents the opposite. However, there are always going to be those instances where you just can't hold it and you really gotta go (alas, diuretics!).

I've been frequenting the library almost daily the past few weeks, it's become a headquarters of sorts. In so doing, I became acquainted with the utilities on site. I must say, they are generally well-kept. Clean. Clean is good. Sometimes though, especially on those days when there are book groups meetings or kids clubs congregating, you encounter those stalls where you wish you never stepped toward, make you wonder what is so hard about the common courtesy inherent in the act of flushing.

So, when you enter, and turn directly right, there is one stall where the lock does not exist. There are two holes in the door, just where it once held screws holding that ghostly lock in place. Who knows what happened to it. Perhaps a visitor took a liking to it, and decided they would help themselves to a souvenir.

If and when I need to go (diuretics, I tell you), that stall is the one for me. The door doesn't lock, yes I agree. I, the Besharami, have no fear of having the door flung open exposing me in my moment.

Why? Well, who else would use the stall without the lock for fear of the door opening. Hardly anyone, when it comes down to it. Regardless of being barren of its lock, the door stays closed within the framework, that doesn't bother me. So it's simple logic. That is the cleanest stall in the whole loo-ville. The chances are slim anyone, if anyone ever, uses it. And if one tries to overthink and consider that perhaps other people think the same way....that doesn't leave one at much of a loss: the other stalls would just be as dirty.

So there you have it. The stall with no lock. That's mine. ;)

Nod

Those Virgos born between the 24th August and 3rd September don't really like to be the centre of attention and can become embarrassed if singled out from the crowd. You are what can be termed the quiet achiever and prefer anonymity to being a show stopper.

You have an unusual blend of extrovert and introvert qualities, which puts you in the perfect position of being able to associate with all sorts of people. There are times when others don’t understand you because you swing between these two extremes of your personality.

 

(astrology.com)

Candles Lit

I pretty much spent all yesterday with two of my best friends from a few years ago. Before yesterday, we'd all been encumbered with the 'busy schedules of life', so we hardly really had time to hang out properly.

We hadn't made specific plans for what we were going to do, and consequently, quite a lot of the day went by aimlessly driving around. But there was something in just being together that made the whole day so eventful.

I was reminded of the person I used to be, and the people they used to be; and the contrast to how much has changed and yet, how much we were all the same despite the couple of years that went by so quickly was profound.

The theme of the day was pretty much "Remember when?" -- and laughter permeated our little world. At one time one of them asked me why I was so quiet, "you're always talking and laughing and full of life". I just slapped him lazily, because I was so stuffed with food and therefore lethargic. But it got me thinking, that these were people who were the type who liked looking good in public, and this included not embarrassing themselves, or acting hyper -- and when we three made a trio back in the day I was the one who had injected the laughter and jokes into our moments together, and yet looking at them today, that inclination to be hyper and unrestricted was in each of us. Seeing them like that made me feel happy.

Flashback

When I was a kid, I used to be excited going to the library. Not just for the books and all the outing entailed, mind you. I've only just realized this other reason just now, while looking up at the skylights at the library I am sitting in now.

The library we went to when we were younger had these huge cylindrical air ducts along the ceiling. They had holes all along them. And more interestingly, they were painted bright green. I don't know the actual terminology for what those air cylinders are called.

Of course, as a kid, I didn't really know what they were for. I had my intelligent suspicions that they had something to do with air, but that may have just been that. Another part of me always felt perhaps they were part of a secret fun playland (or maybe not secret, just that I hadn't ever seen them been used). You know, like the tunnels you crawl through at Chuck E Cheese, or at the playland area at MacDonalds or Burger King. The ones who usually saw kids going to play at, because of course we weren't allowed.

But yes, maybe it was a sneaking fantasy of mine: I always was inclined to make up stories or my own explanations for certain things. Maybe I just felt that on quiet Saturday mornings, there was this library club of kids who were in on the secret and were allowed to run up to a second place we did not know of, and enter the land of bright green tunnels on the ceiling. And everyone else didn't know this because we all just got there too late.

Now, I'm grown up. I still love coming to the library. That special quiet hush that you almost cannot find anywhere else, the place where people are all dedicatedly focused; reading, studying, researching, browsing, typing. Everyone in their own world, collectively. All all those books: each a world unto its own.

The Fault in Our Stars

I'm in love with you, and I'm not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasure of saying true things. I'm in love with you, and I know that love is just a shout into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable, and that we're all doomed and that there will come a day when all our labor has been returned to dust, and I know the sun will swallow the only earth we'll ever have, and I am in love with you.”

― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

Natural Remedies: Flaxseed Oil

I got to thinking that I have a huge plethora of natural remedies that I have yet to share. I've moved my first few posts that I had shared on GLAM to this blog to keep all these "Beauty"-labelled posts together in one place.

That said, why do I want to share, never mind write these kind of posts? There are a fair number of reasons. The first being that I'm totally a believer of "natural beauty" and I have always had a thing for reading about the ways natural ingredients can be used at home. By 'always' I mean me as a very young schoolgirl pouring over thick books of natural uses for fruits and the likes. And though I'd been mostly a tomboy for most of that time, I liked to be able to 'look good' without piling on the cosmetics so to speak. To look maximally good with minimum effort.

Anyways, with that little dip in history, I move on to the point of today's post. Flaxseed oil.

Also known as linseed oil, this natural ingredient is best known for its high percentage of omega-3. I've been taking the capsules daily when it occurred to me that the oil may have benefits being applied topically. With some research I learnt that yes, flaxseed oil is used in cosmetic products that boast the ability to produce softer and smoother skin.

The thing with each of my beauty posts is that these are remedies I test and try myself. And I fully believe they ought to be followed by anyone and everyone who seeks the specific benefit.

So what I did was poke open a flaxseed oil capsule, and massaged the oil into my face and scalp. One capsule is more than enough for this purpose. In one use, I already felt the effects: really soft and silky skin.

The thing about flaxseed oil is that it's anti-inflammatory omega-3 fatty acids, good for red skin and irritation.

WebMD.com:

"Flaxseed oil is a source of polyunsaturated fatty acids such as alpha-linolenic acid. The alpha-linolenic acid and related chemicals in flaxseed oil seem to decrease inflammation. That is why flaxseed oil is thought to be useful for rheumatoid arthritis and other inflammatory (swelling) diseases."

I implore those of you who would be looking into using flaxseed oil to not buy cosmetic products that state they have flaxseed oil in them. Often such products are just filled with a large percentage of filler creams and a very small percent of actual active ingredient (i.e. flaxseed oil). Buying a bottle of the capsules is much more cost-efficient; you're getting the pure oil at a fraction of the cost of brand cosmetics.

I do want to remark also that there are some people who may be allergic and therefore will experience bad side effects of using flaxseed oil. If you're pregnant or use low blood sugar medication, for example, you are cautioned not to partake of flaxseed. 

Simphobia

Perhaps I'm being inspired to just write freely because of a co-blogger who has also just done so. To be honest, it's something I've very much missed in my own writing. The capacity to simply write freely, without being reticent. Reticence has somehow continually crept in and made itself a home in my writing, and I guess those who are my writers would perhaps perceive this in their own ways, noting how I tend to write quite ambiguously.

Now after all the months and years, I'm not entirely certain I can dissect the way I write: ambiguity and reticence seem so entwined together they are almost one, and both are entirely part of who I am, at least the who I am that is me, the writer.

See what I mean? I'm not able to just write "simply", I suppose, as someone once complained.  And this may come as a surprise to a few of you: my writing self and my conversational self are two different people. I'm very outgoing and plain-spoken when I speak in person. I'm not spouting profound soundbites or big words. I, in fact, find it difficult to convert complex thoughts into spoken word; perhaps it is that additional inconvenience of having to send extra neurosensory commands to the areas of my brain that are responsible for the physical movement of my mouth. That capacity isn't as agile as my that of simply converting thoughts to written words, through my fingers. Maybe I should practice.

And this reminds me of another thing I lack in practice: speaking hindi. I've often told most people that I sound so horribly 'gora' when I try, that I don't try. It's embarrassingly faux pas, in a way. But I am not really able to speak it aloud, because I don't really have much practice, and I don't practice simply because I sound so gauche. Another Catch-22 of sorts.

The odd thing is I am again more confident with reading and writing the language - even the script - as long as it stays in my head. And then again, I'm able to sing hindi songs and apparently sound like I'm well spoken in the language, but then again that may be because I do have practice singing Hindi (from a very young age) versus simply speaking it.

And seeing as I'm on the theme of ironies in life, this one also just occurred to me. After years of urging a certain friend to stop eating take-out food all the time, and try to make something at home, I realized how things have changed when I'm now urging them to take a break from cooking everyday and order something from outside.

There is definitely something truly profound I could unearth from all these observations -- it's tingling back in the recess of my mind and waiting for me to come open that door and explore, but for some reason, I'm not going to. Put it down to mental lethargy perhaps, ..but it's not even just that. I don't know, but there you have it.

Qotd

This is how it works. I love the people in my life, and I do for my friends whatever they need me to do for them, again and again, as many times as is necessary. For example, in your case you always forgot who you are and how much you're loved. So what I do for you as your friend is remind you who you are and tell you how much I love you. And this isn't any kind of burden for me, because I love who you are very much. Every time I remind you, I get to remember with you, which is my pleasure.

James Lecesne

Blatherskite

Earlier today, I was waiting for the light to change, and across the intersection, I saw this woman get off the bus, then wait at the corner. The light was still ticking down the seconds (we have those countdown walk-signs) for her to cross one way - about 15 seconds - but she chose to stand there and wait to cross the other way eastward, then wait again to cross again southward to the opposite corner. In watching her, I was thinking: she could have easily have crossed the first light, 15 seconds was a generous amount of time for her to do so. She would have saved time.

But then, was she in a hurry? Did it matter? Did 88 extra seconds waiting make so much of a difference? That's when I started thinking further. How time, despite it being a measure on the clock, overall an accepted,  sanctioned and designated allotment that rarely differs (as in every second is the same measure as the next), time itself is a measurement of perception.

I mean, once upon a time, having a computer process a command in 45 seconds was considered to be relatively fast. Now, if we need to wait even two seconds, we feel quite emphatically, a lag, or we feel that we're being slowed down.

What I thought to myself was that time is a measurement of how many things we can achieve, accomplish or simply execute.

Another example would be how back in the day we (as a species) had to walk far distances without the aid of mechanical transportation.Our parents or grandparents might have regaled us stories of waking up early and walking miles to get to school, and back. That was normal for them. Whereas, now, we have less time to do more. We take the car, we take public transport; and more often than not we become frustrated when we have to wait that extra bit longer because of traffic or delays. If we even considered making those hour-long walks back and forth everyday today...well, I'll leave that to your imagination.

But that's how time has somehow sped up, despite it being technically the same. Yeah we have place to be and things to do, but then again...the perspective makes you think about it, maybe just for a few seconds. I've tended to be an overall patient person. I don't fret waiting in lines, or push my way onto buses or subways. I enjoy taking long hour long walks to places people often take the car for. But yeah, I do have to admit, I get a little irritated when my net lags.

Carpe Diem

Life for this moment – this moment is your life. [1]


If the momentum in life is in anticipation, then what about now? Are we really all het up about what’s next to come, are we truly living?

To put a meter on life itself and try to measure out how much of each moment is about the next one or how much we’re actually living today isn’t what we’re meant to be capable of. If all we’re constantly thinking about the next moment how can we say this moment right now is being lived.

Life’s just this huge turmoil – not only to be taken with a negative connotation – it’s this big deluge that’s constantly churning, at any given moment we can be as much in yesterday as we would be in tomorrow. The sheer levels of parallelism upon which we as human entities rest are profound. While physically in the now, we could also be emotionally in the past, and cognitively already in the future.

I sometimes get irritated with people who cannot stop to smell the roses [2]. Those who are always constantly anxious about the upcoming events yet to happen, simply because they aren’t sure how those events will turn out. If you can’t control it, then let go.

And then you’ve got those who don’t prepare for the future. Because there again is that transitory phenomenon wherein anticipation and expectation reside – the people who don’t take today to do what they can control and then fritter away the time in anxiety consequential.

Then when you truly think about it, what really is the ‘now’? I mean, by the time you think of this now, it’s already passed. And so has the one that came after it, and then this one….yup, that’s also gone.

Every moment sliding out of our hands like sand, it’s almost no wonder that our society is so obsessed with the future. Since time immemorial, there have been so many methods for foretelling, predicting, or reading our ‘futures’. That’s to assume somehow that it’s already programmed. (Who is to tell whether that’s the case or not.)

But when we’re always looking ahead what about all this time that’s been passing under our noses? Stop.

If we’re not up to our gills with preparing for something or the other, we’re filling in the rest of the time with a storm of emotions, clouding up our mental space, our emotional well-being. And that can be a serious block.

Take me, for example. For whatever reasons, I’ve found I couldn’t just sit still and write. For some time now, if you hadn’t noticed. If it’s not just already being so darned busy doing other things, then it’s time squandered by that heavy emotional storm – although intangible and invisible, it’s still got a huge powerful effect on me. It is afterall, my mental ability that is being subverted.

But why? Why, I ask myself, must I be subverted? Why have I stopped being able to sit down peacefully and take time for myself and write?

It’s kind of odd, if I had to explain this, because in one instance, I sort of felt I had nothing to write about. That with everything happening routinely, and being emotionally exhausted by other things, there was so temporal space for me to fit in this menial task of putting thoughts to paper.

Like I said, it’s odd. Because often I’ve felt I needed some sort of angst, or some sort of extra joyousness to write something, anything. And yet, if something did happen, it more often than not felt extremely personal and I couldn’t write and therefore share with others.

So how come I have been writing these days? You know what? I don’t have a clue, myself. But the point is, does it matter? Why must I ferret away or chisel everything down to an explanation – it’s the moment that is now that is important, no?

Sometimes I don’t need to think about what’s going to happen when I wake up. Because, regardless, whatever will happen will happen.


[1]Found in IQ's List of Favourite Quotes

[2] I know I KNOW I'm being repetitive; I know I've often written about this - I apologize.