The Million Rupee Questions

Sexy Boss said yesterday that she found a new way of relieving stress-writing. Something that I have sworn by since I was a child, but it still warms you up inside when someone discovers the joy of reading or writing.

Her first chapter had been entitled "The Questions we ask ourselves", and what a way to start, I think. Made me think of our Million Rupee Questions.

Am I good enough?

Am I pretty enough?

Do I have what it takes?

Is it worth taking that risk?

Do I really want this?

Will I succeed?

Where the hell will I be in just 5 years from now?

Will my children be proud of me?

Do I have to be patient? Supportive? Understanding?

Can I be everything to everyone, and still have enough left for me?

Do I really the have the potential everyone keeps yapping about?

Will I become the person everyone thinks I can be, or the person I settle for being?

In his commencement address to a group of graduating students, late author David Foster Wallace said that the real value of a Liberal Arts education is to the ability the students gains to think clearly midst the chaos that is the internal working of the human mind. One Social Sciences degree and one year of experience in the famed make 'em or break 'em corporate sector down the line, I wonder how right he was.

Oh sublime!

Thanks to a generous gift from the Love of My Life, encountered first ever full body massage today. And oh, it was sublime!

Pampered in to a willing ball of nothingness at the hands of Olina, a cheerful, very young, Thai masseuse at possibly the swankiest (and ahem, only) spa I have visited, the single thought I had the will power to hold on to was that she could kill me if she wanted to, I wouldn't have been able to budge an inch to prevent it. She pummeled and she pulled, she rubbed and soothed, she pushed and shoved and soothed some more. And all of this mind you, within a dim-lit room of exquisite, simple elegance, soft music and accentuated withe comfortingly hot Sesame oil. Ah...


Stepped out the spa of it with another self-righteous opinion dashed to the ground-I no longer hold in contempt those rich bitches who do this more than occasionally. Of course they do this instead of busting the k on helping orphaned children. If I had the money, I would do this more than occasionally. I would alternate between the 3 choices you get to choose from as the aroma that distills in to your nostrils from under your face. I would choose the Ayurvedic spa one week, the Javanese the next and maybe try the Yoga spa. I would eagerly ask for the post-treatment Tamarind juice and choose Olina as my therapist of choice. I would even shed my clothing with a little less reserve, over time of course!

Of course, I would like to think that I would also spend some time on the orphans. I would be a nice, rich bitch.

But oh, sublime. Simply, sublime :)

Feeling a tad...

Uninspired today, right now. Must be the weather :) It's exhausting-ly capricious and difficult to keep up with.

Visited school today for a fair, met a lot of old friends, caught up some, had fun some. However just came home uninspired. Lots of statuses on Facebook about how they want to go back to school, yay school etc. But I don't feel the enthusiasm. Which is ironic actually because school is probably the only place where I felt completely at ease, in control, and totally belonged.  However, I have no trouble severing ties with parts of my life that end. I always look at it as a part of the great circle that is life, so amid the tears and fears of everyone else, I am calm, unfazed, and ready for Chapter Next.

There's a rom-com streaming though, and a friend coming home for a sleepover. I cling to these to be satiated, if not completely inspired.

Yikes. I say, Yikes.

I am seeking inspiration. I read somewhere-basically some great, writing mind had opined-that if you are writing something, and you face Writer's Block, that shows that what you're writing is not right. Therefore he, I think it was...Ray Bradbury, says that you should just stop. And write something that your mind actually agrees with.
Great advice, when you think of it. But also, very, very idealistic. Because in life you face all these little unpleasant tasks that you simply cannot afford to let go of. Like now, this dastardly Press Release on a vehicle mart. I mean, really. What is a writer to say. I have been labouring happily at 2 paras for the past 2 hours. I tried music, I tried reading inspirational writer advice, but no. Not happening.

So I decided to try Ray's advice. Now my brain, REALLY agrees with what I'm writing :-D

Number 5 on this list is where you should be looking :
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/05/18/commencement-speeches-2/

Little Bubbles

My little bubble, let me describe it. Outside it, it's a beautiful world of colour and work and order, but inside my bubble swirls my everything.

The insecurities, the inconsistent feelings, the thoughts that shame me, the un-fulfilled resolutions, the silly things that make me happy, the silly things I don't talk about because they just wouldn't do.

Some bubbles contain the hurt of unrequited love, a thirst slaked outside the bubble with dalliance and one-nighters, careless flirtations.

Some bubbles, I imagine, consist of the wars between what we are and we should be.

Some bubbles are of anger, resentment, helpless fury.

Some are of temptation, of fruits that strive to stay untasted.

I don't know, there must be a lot of such bubbles. It's just so apparent that everyone is living in one, though. We all just seem to float around endlessly, bobbing about on the waves of society, sticking to protocol, doing what's expected. But everyone is in their own little indestructible bubble of everything.

For a special friend

Creepy though that may sound, this is for a special friend who turns an year older today. You know who you are, bitch :)

I decided against a Facebook post because it seems like personal wishes should stay that way, personal. And I have become progressively bad with mailing cards, with age.

I think I have always been blessed when it comes to people. Almost a quarter down my life (holy CRAP) I can safely say that I have met a wide variety of people whom I have loved, liked, avidly disliked and just been plain amused by. This post is dedicated to, however, someone who I consider to be a a bit of a twin soul. I must say we're quite different, and that often the world is viewed in a very different way by the both of us. But, there is something uncanny and yet, comforting in having someone who knows exactly WHAT you mean, without requiring the footnotes. Complete understanding is highly under-rated.

Time has fled and it's been more than an year since we last met, and much has changed. People, places, circumstances once familiar are now basically shelved under "Hey remember when...?". And yet, a sister of the heart remains that, regardless of the time and space that comes between.

A sister of the heart remains a sister of the heart.

So happy birthdays jangi :)

Searching for meaning

When the title for this post struck me just now, it put me off writing it :) It sounds as abstract as it means and ensures the few 100-300 words following to be those of a person who is-at heart, it seems-beautifully, agonizingly, aimless.

The thing with people who have set aims and goals in life; It's difficult to hate them, or even envy them. It seems unfair to hold something against these perfectly settled, destination-oriented, busily tired out individuals because I know how they got there. They had a calling, they felt the need to be someone, they took the difficult, fraught decisions to get on the path to there, and now they're on their way. They may be far from it, they may even be suffering through exams, heartache, insecurity, no income, anything, everything, but they're on their way.

Which make me wonder WHY I feel aimless. There seems to be a set goal in most lives, at least, like, a rough arrow in their minds pointing SOMEwhere. My arrow, whenever it blinks on (It's neon, and switches off when I get distracted by pretty things) points one way..then another. Then it blinks, flickers a little, does a circle, wavers, wavers some more, settles for an easy choice, and then switches off.

As prophesied, this post is naught but, bunkum. 

The Grateful Alive

I wonder if it's general maturity or hearing others' woes that makes one realize what one should be grateful for.
Maybe it's a combination.

I know I'm grateful that I have love in my life, and I don't mean the platonic or filial variety. I mean the angry, biting, desperate, grieving, ecstatic, dizzying type.

I know I'm grateful for having parents who don't hover. Like space ships or mother hens over their chicks, asking if they're done eating, wondering why they're still not home, touching, stroking, placating. GAAAAAAH!!

I'm grateful for having opportunities. To eat, to learn, to read, to blog when the mood strikes :)

I'm grateful for the time I have in life; the time I create without the pressures of whens and when it's dones and once that's overs.

I'm grateful for whatever friends I have made, and will keep, in any realm of life-school, college, work. I' thankful for my lifelines- FB, Skype, mobile.

I'm grateful, I realize, more that anything else, for being able to be grateful for these things. For being able to rejoice in them instead of seeking out all the negative things in life, circling them in Red and marking them "THIS IS WHY MY LIFE SUCKS."

I'm pretty sure that when the next wave of contentment with life strikes, this post will have an extension. Till then, we must all brace ourselves for the inevitable depression. It's life. It imitates any natural cycle.

Eating bad fruit

I think that giving someone you don’t particularly like, a chance, is very difficult to do. It’s an expense of emotional energy the point of which you always doubt because at the back of your mind the questions linger and pop out at your consciousness;

“Would she do the same for me?”

“Is he just using me, like always?”

“Is this just going to be another time when I bang my head and mutter ‘Should have seen that coming, again!’?”

It’s like eating bad fruit; you have to have a certain degree of rare courage to eat a bad fruit, spit it out, and then calmly pick up another one and proceed to peel it. I want to check the fruit, re-check it, poke at it with my knife, hold it up under the harsh glare of the fluorescent light in the kitchen. I don’t want to eat the bad fruit again, and feel that bad taste in my mouth again. I don’t want to feel like a fool who gets had, over and over again. The fool who the not-so-foolish and the hopelessly cynical turn to and gloat at, “I told you not to trust her again”.

But I always think, life is so short and so full of mistakes. I am so full of mistakes. My soul is contaminated as it is with my personal failings and embarrassing little un-Christian habits. Why darken another corner of my soul with a grudge? Because that’s what holding things against someone does. It discolours your heart a little. It taps in to your being’s well of negative energy, and draws forth.

So much easier on the breathing then, to let in. Not trust, maybe, not even get too close to. But to let in. To not just be civil to on a superficial level but find it in your heart to stop clutching at a dislike and to genuinely allow that person in to your space. I won’t be best friends, I won’t even let you be best friends, but I won’t hesitate to talk honestly, to help willingly and to genuinely take joy in the good that comes your way.

I will always doubt but I will not let that doubt get the better of me

. I, in fact, am trying to be better than that.

Escape

People could want to escape from any number of things, I imagine. The nature of life and reality is such that, unless you have reached that higher state of being where you can see The Truth for what it is, you are always faced with people, places, situations, decisions, encounters you want to run away from.

I used to think that taking to the bottle because you're father was an alcoholic was wrong, fundamentally. One must be strong for oneself, one must develop and all that. But what a load of crap. Escape is all we do. We help others , we groom ourselves, we hit the gym, we study harder, we smile brighter, we date the radicals, we drink more, we smoke up a little more, we take up healthy lifestyles, we develop superficially esoteric tastes, we become "better" people. But we're always trying to escape. It's always the escape hatch that we yank open, finding the rusted key somewhere deep in our cowardly, broken souls, bolting through so fast that whatever is behind us pants to catch up.

But it always does. It follows, and it bides its time carefully hiding in our shallow subconscious mind and...POUNCE. 

Then there is, no where at all, to run. 

Strength of a woman

Went to watch the original Mr. Lover Lover last weekend, Shaggy live in concert! Not only was it entertaining but also highly amusing to see Shaggy sidle his slimy way up to the local ladies! That might be the cynic in me talking. Anyway, when he started playing "Strength of a woman", he asked the aaalll independent women in the audience to raise them hannnds!!! And there were shrieks and raised hands of course.
Made me think of this idea of an independent woman. With years of feminist ideology backing us, every educated, open-minded woman should ideally be an independent woman. But what strikes me as ironic, often about myself more than anyone else, is the sheer effort women put in to being independent, of men. If we strive always to "be our own woman", then there is an invisible thread that is still pulling us mentally toward the Alpha Male who in the end decided our fates as human beings- woman, mother, sister, lover, wife, colleague.

Now, the really admirable ones are the women who have grown in spite of the invisible thread. The well-balanced, non-extremist women who, yes admittedly, need and have men, but are alone in their strength and don't depend on a sort of male crutch. Those are the admirable ones. And having in a few in my life isn't just helpful, it's downright inspirational.

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Triskele/The triple spiral

"She'll take you too a hiiigher plaaace..." You know you wanna sing along ;)

On a related note, this symbol is the triskele, a neopagan symbol for the three stages of the woman : maiden, mother, crone. There's more to it than that, as it is apparently a Celtic and pre-Celtic symbol as well. Must do some digging.
If I ever get a tat, this could be it. The strong woman, har har har ;)