Chiffonesque

 It has been a rough day. And there is so much to do. It's as if the to-do list just keeps reproducing tasks when I close my diary. I think I am coming down with fever and I have been in such bad temper for a while. I feel like going out for a coffee but no. There is a ton of stuff to get through before getting a few hours of sleep and then waking up to live all over again.  I really lost my cool today. As well as yesterday and the day before. It's towards the end of the year. It shouldn't have to be so painful anymore.  In the loo, I was calculating the number of hours I have been alive. Got bored with the calculation but I have been alive many many hours. I should be a pro at handling my mood. What's that they say about 10,000 hours leading to mastery? Well, it has not.  But as the saying goes, "Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.  After enlightenment; chop wood, carry water. " Well, there's some chai for company filhaal . 

 It has been a strange day. I took a nap for a half hour but it felt like it was for 5 or 6 hours. Went to the gym and tried working out a little seriously. Watched an interview of Jordan Peterson. I admire him because I generally admire a lot of people from Harvard. But overall I do find him dour and difficult. In the course of the interview, he was talking about his wife's illness and then his own illness. Apparently, it was quite debilitating. He started crying. I felt bad. Maybe because I feel that his ill health cracked a seemingly invincible veneer. His position seems to be that men don't get their due and the aggression of liberals, the woke community that leads to cancel culture, the polarizing nature of sharp feminism, etc. He has a lot of supporters and a lot of detractors. But in these interviews where he talks of his wife and illness and then breaks down (even in a Russell Brand interview, he choked up while talking), you see something. You see someone who has been ...

 Today I went to the planetarium with Papa. We got lunch at a restaurant close by. He had Thukpa. Really enjoyed it. I went to the planetarium after school. So I revisited it after Pluto was out of the solar system. I can't explain - the sense of being so small in the immenseness that just keeps growing. There were little children. There were parents who were trying to answer kiddie questions as soon as they were asked, and there were young college couples - and that was the group I was most curious about. Do they choose partners differently after they get a sense of just how massive infinity is? What does a dinner or a night out with you mean after I know that my tiny life will not even be a speck in the tiniest portion of the smallest sun? If I studied astrophysics, would I live differently? Would I love differently? Would I work differently? Sometimes I become sharply aware of just how finite my time with my father is. One day this will go away and end. But it wasn't today. ...

 The other day a friend from my earlier workspaces had come over. She told me about a concept of 'learned helplessness.' It basically means that if, as a child, you went through a pattern with your family where you felt stuck or frustrated, you may carry that emotional response to similar situations as an adult. Even if, as an adult, I have a choice to feel or act differently so that I don't feel stuck, my learned helplessness will ensure that I go back to feeling like the helpless child I was. Anyway, came across a verse on Instagram. Loved it. Here goes: " Woh tha zamaana, guzar gaya kab ka, Woh tha deewana, mar gaya kab ka, Mera jo zakhm hai, woh woh hi jaane, Apna toh zakhm bhar gaya kab ka ." - Javed Akhthar

 It was a rough day yesterday. I asked someone to leave the house. She was in the middle of tea and she said something that irked me so badly that I asked her to go. I stood up and said, "You should leave."  She looked a little confused as to what to do with the cup and the book she had picked up to borrow. I told her she could leave both those items and go.  It has been a while since I have done that. I still wondet what got over me. But actually nothing. I felt it was too unpleasant to just stew in my own resentment of her.  But I felt bad and scared. Whenever this almost demonic possession of anger gets over me. And now slowly I am finding that it is hard to shake off from my system. I don't know. I have been feeling quite defeated lately. I would say it was yesterday but it has been longer than that. Maybe it is time to give nihilism a chance.

 This day did not begin well. It has not ended badly. So I suppose there is some comfort in middling satisfaction of things not having gone too badly. I had told H, my cleaning lady, to clear something up. She didn't. It bothered me so much. That is what continues to worry me - an inability to just come to grips with something and let it go. Anyway, my mind is scattered and I have to update a storyboard that I have been delaying for ages. I have worked on it so many, many times!  And there's no finish line in sight. Sometimes I wonder if this is where the concept of multiple lifetimes comes in and the resultant urge for liberation. Every life seems to be an iteration of the same work. You are never quite there because the client expectations and feedback and requirement keep changing. And then with every subsequent iteration, it gets difficult to approach with a fresh mind because all the comments of the previous iterations and highlights and notations are put in - so it is di...

There is still one and a half hour more before the day ends. But it has been tough. I have to write a brochure on some software copy and I am not able to make progress. I think on days that I begin with meetings, my day goes for a toss. I am not productive at all. And then when there are multiple calls in a day, it takes me time to unwind from one call to the next. Anyway, one way or the other, we got through.  A list of 5 things that were good today: 1. The rainy weather was gorgeous.  2. Cook had made the soya cutlets really well. 3. A school friend pinged me about meeting up on Saturday. 4. The fairy lights looked pretty. 5. Read a few more pages of a novel I will finish and write soon about.

 This seems like a strange kind of familiar...and a familiar kind of strange. Getting back to blogging after months.  A lot is going on and I am feeling flustered. I cannot find my trusted regular notebook and paper on which I write my task lists. Actually, my notebook is divided into two parts. The front part is kept for the regular to-do lists and the latter part is just thought ejections because my brain is going unruly.  To clear up some space in my head and heart so that I may be more coherent, I will describe the world around me. I have a little Red Bull in a wine goblet. I love the colour of Red Bull through thick glass because it reminds me of a tropical sunset, just before the sun drips and melts into the ocean, and shy, singing stars peep out. I have some strips of medicines that I was taking when I had a fever. I took them for a few days and did not complete the course. I cannot take these pills like Combiflam and all for a long time. I feel like I am swallowin...