On choices and dealing with them

The way I see it, moping is the pits. While I do recommend the occasional bout of feeling sorry for oneself, extended periods of this are just going to result in a less productive, unhappy, constantly-down individual.

In my eternal optimism, I find that the solution, then, must be to work. Work, work, work until there really isn't time to wander around the house with a hangdog expression and plenty of depression for anyone who has the misfortune to cross your path.

Every single thing I've read online about motivation and maintaining a study-life balance and stuff (maybe I Googled extensively. Sue me :D) says that organization is key, as is time management. As a champion failure in both aspects, I can say that the FEW times I have actually attempted at these with some mild success have been awesome. You feel like you're doing something in life rather than going through the motions like an automaton.

It's surely not easy, but then, what is? Up to a certain point in life, all seems rosy and delightful. Maybe it's high school for some, college for some, first useless job for others. While you do face challenges and problems, I don't seem to remember the bone-deep fatigue with life that I have heard fellow 20-somethings complain about. But there you have it. By choice, we live demanding lives. At least, most of us. We have chosen our gruelling professions for love or money, or both, and we have chosen our ambitions and our insecurities and our means to becoming "better". Now we all need to deal with it.

Back to work!

But first, some 80s, just because it's Throwback Thursday and all that :)

Keeping up with the Kardashians...

...cannot be as difficult as keeping up with my own life and its menagerie of mad people. If it's not trying to write a thesis while battling chronic lethargy and spurts of holy-shit-why-why-why-did-I-take-this-on, it's family members with attitude problems, dogs that refuse to leave your room, and friends dropping bombshells, accompanied by clients with bad accents and worse personalities, chores, and just general fatigue.

Taking deep breaths would help, I guess. But it's too bloody hot here in sunny Colombo for that, and the lights just went out. Godforsaken CEB. Might as well listen to some good music. Pfft.



Also, loved Kim's wedding dress. So pure and virginal *snigger snigger*

The Philosopher's Stone

There are times in life, when all you want to do is bang your head repeatedly against a hard concrete wall and gouge someone's eyes out just to release your extreme frustration and inability deal with some shit.

In times like this, I assume mature people would listen to awesome, sublime music like this. I am so freaking mature, and hence, here it is.



Sometimes I wish I could just pack up a car and head off into the blissful unknown, seeking the Philosopher's Stone.

A visit to a home on a Saturday in May

The ‘home’ seems a little run-down from the outside. When you walk in, pushing aside a big iron gate, the first things you see are a lawn that leaves the impression of uncut grass and a fat soft toy of a panda that I first thought was a dog on a bench in front of the house. I find out later that the house belonged to a once-famous actress, Ruby De Mel, who started this place with 10 children with special needs. Later research tells me that this is her home, and that she had a role in the Indiana Jones movie that was filmed in Sri Lanka.

We walk in and are greeted with familiarity and warmth by a young girl who ushers us in – one of us is a regular donor and from the area. We walk into the verandah to the curious stares of three girls – women – on the left, in various poses on the terra-cotta floor. Two are sitting, one is on all fours. All three stare unblinkingly and somewhat unsurely at us.

Inside, the house is spacious, built with the corridors and middle courtyard so familiar in old Sri Lankan houses. The feeling of being run-down prevails, but in a clean, hygienic and slightly familiar way. It’s how you would see any old house that hasn't seen renovations in a long time but is full of people who love it and keep it habitable.

We are ushered in to the eating area. I get the impression of children, adults, in-betweens of varying types. I try to zoom in on their disorder with my psychology-student insight; doesn't appear to have Down’s, but yes, I was told that this is a home for people with Autism. I try to spot the characteristics we learned about – the love of order, the dislike for maintaining eye contact. I do not find it, or I am too afraid to look properly.

We are asked to serve, and this is nice. It feels like you’re really a part of the giving process. Rice, a big aluminium dish of dhal, potatoes with chili, chicken, fish, and salad. A young girl who is a helper serves out the rice, but we dish out the curries onto plates that are plastic or aluminium and have numbers and faded letters on them, written in permanent black marker.

Once done, the helpers call the girls and women in, and they stream in, not unruly but now uncaring of the company. We hover by the door and a stout lady in a Kandyan sari asks us to come closer. She asks what the ‘occasion’ is. It is an anniversary – five years of ups and downs together. We hedge a little; the absence of marriage makes this kind of joint donation a little tricky by societal standards. We stick to just our names. The woman nods understandingly and begins.

It’s very similar to many I’ve heard before. Ayubowan! We are here today because these wonderful people have donated our lunch for us. So, to thank them, we wish and hope for them happiness and health always. She pauses to mangle my name a little and looks over at us. We look somber, I think, to suit the situation. She goes on. We wish them success in everything they do. The girls and women stand with their hands folded, possibly unaware of what is being said, mostly likely only registering hunger.

For the first time, I am just impaled by the irony of the situation. Here they stand, some 20 women of varying age, with mental disorders that will never allow them a full societal life. They will be happy in this home, they are well taken care of, but they will not know real health, ever. They will never know ‘success’, personal fulfillment, the whirlwind romance of youth, doing work you love, being a woman and enjoying what that means in this day. There they are wishing us happiness because we donated Rs. 2,000 each for their lunch. The bronze highlights in my hair cost me more than twice that amount. And they are wishing us – happy, healthy, fit, in love and with the world and our life together stretching in front of us with endless, frightening, glorious possibilities.

The woman mentions our names again, and I look down, feeling depressed. People often talk of feeling “so depressed” after coming to ’homes’. I often get angry at these people for their superficial charity and their fleeting emotions towards people who have a million more reasons to be ‘so depressed’. But, I am depressed at all of this – at me, at them, and at the world and how life works in general. The woman finishes, and the children and women give a rousing “thank you!” (I think that was it, I don’t remember) and immediately turn to their food, quite happy with life.

What is twerking?

Why do we look for answers anywhere else but within ourselves? I often think this when I Google something that I really shouldn't be Googling, mostly existential questions. Of course, Google, and the millions of confused cyberstruck souls that we share the planet with, has the answer. Whatever you want to know, they got the answer to, sometimes with long explanations as to WHY you're feeling the way you are, other times with neat and clean little bulleted lists with steps to take to achieve/get rid of/change whatever it is you're trying to.

I'm thinking it might have to do with how little we think these days. It's always easier to click and share now than to sit down and ruminate over the why's and where's or how's of Life. If you put it out there on the public forums, now, THEN you'll get a response, a Like, a Comment from some smart-alec who's been there and done that. You needn't bother with introspection.

So Google will tell you how to get your life in order, how to concentrate for an exam, why your hair is falling, how to be a better man, ways to pleasure your woman in bed, why you can't get over a broken heart, what to listen to when you're upset, why the sky is blue, who you should really be in life, what career you should be following and why you're not doing what you're supposed to be doing in life.

It's easy and manufactured, and ready-to-go answers are what we all seem to looking for these days. Just seems to take away from the whole point of the thinking man/woman, that's all.

'What is twerking?' -- the most Googled question in America in 2013. She came in like a wreeeecking baaalll, indeed :-/

Frank's the man...

After revamping my blog, I tried to write a meaningful and deep post -- FAIL. Did not work. Pleased as I am with the casually abstract and slightly winsome look my blog now has (not contrived at all), I'm all out when it comes to the written word. So, here I share what's occupying me as I sit, sick, in the middle of this balmy, mosquito-infected Colombo night:

1. Reading this. Discovered on one of those late, not-doing-much-here-boss nights at work. Turns out Gaius Vallerius Cattulus was an ancient Roman orator, philosopher and poet. Tidbits of knowledge like that always make me feel hopelessly ignorant of everything else I do not know.

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/advice-to-himself/

2. Also skimming through this. Found through a friend's Facebook post, and I must say, it seems sensible.

http://www.trulybuddha.com/

3. Also reading Sophie's Choice. Brilliant and almost done with it!!

4. And finally, listening to this man -- nearest thing to chocolate that I can stomach right now. Ah...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7GHgE8fylQ

60 small ways to improve your life

I found this interesting. I often read these 'How to improve your life' posts on various websites, but these 'tips' hit home in the areas of relevance and simplicity. I will be trying out a few of these, particularly those related to de-cluttering my mental Colombo evening traffic jam.

Checkiddout.

http://www.trulybuddha.com/60-small-ways-to-improve-your-life-in-the-next-100-days/