my habits and i

Internal struggles are insane
Insanity is lack of foresight
Foresight involves connecting
the present to its future form

there would be no struggle
if there were no habits
and if reason alone ruled us
or if everything was meaningful

meaningful,
each thing had a right name
and an unalterable value
which wouldn’t change

and we were rational beings
free from habit

happiness is a full tummy

My dad is one of the fun-est people to be with; however I think he sealed it for my nephew, his grandson, when he asked me to do good enough research that my nephew ends up reading about it one day! The occasion for this comment was the fact that I have a very new nephew and the fact that I have an equally recent offer from an international publisher to publish my phd thesis.

I don’t know what it says about me or my thesis that my first reaction was, this gotto be spam! However they did end up sending me some reasonable details and a portfolio of what they publish.

So, while it will be a while before I get to see my nephew – and get to hear what my niece thinks about him. And while work doesn’t seem to be offering me much opportunities of doing the kind of work nephews and nieces would like reading about. And I am fairly unsure of my thesis getting published into a beautiful looking book. I still think, life isn’t as miserable as I am finding it. Perhaps if it didn’t involve eating an animal that was specifically killed to make food for me, I would be eating some non-vegetarian food. At the moment, I am hoping the supplements would do it for me…

one, two, buckle my shoe

In view of my recent unpleasant experiences, I think that life can be divided into exactly two phases:

One, when, we get the chance to use our skills to do useful and nice things
Two, when, we are forced to do useless stuff to learn useful skills

Or putting it differently,

One, when we build our reputation
Two, when we build our character

Or putting it still differently,

One, when we read and enjoy interesting writings
Two, when we struggle at memorising vague symbols by looking at relatively monotonous and ridiculously stupid books.

the year that was...

The new years is usually an arbitrary milestone on the trip, albeit it does give some kind of a relative structure to our past and gives some kind of relative speed to certain parts of the trip. 2009 has been a happening year. To reflect upon the idea that only I could have sowed the seeds for the events that took shape for me in 2009, does seem a bit unbelievable, but of course it is true.

The most striking, conspicuous feature of 2009 and even 2008, which came before it, was the lack of a stable home arrangement. While in 2008, I moved houses at the average rate of one in 3 months; in 2009, I had housemates at the rate of one in 2 months. Needless to say, most of the 2008 and 2009 were spent in looking for houses and housemates, with other things being played out on that background. (And I can proudly claim that I have had housemates from nearly all the major human races, and a couple of canine races as well!)

I think I have flogged that dead horse for a while now. So, now I’m going to skip anything about moving houses and about housemates, and list all the other things that I did last year:

1. I got married
2. I bought my first apartment,
3. I struggled at being able to sleep at night,
4. I got a belt at taekwondo,
5. I re-joined university,
6. I underwent 2 surgeries,
7. I spent Diwali at home after nearly 7 years,
8. I travelled to Sri Lanka for the first time,
9. I swam with the fish,
10. I did not have a single boring old flight, in some 10 odd international flights that I took, including one where the travel agent hadn’t paid the airlines and another where i was booked onto a cancelled flight,
11. I met my year old niece, who is more amazing than I could have imagined,

I made some new friends, I lost touch with some old ones, I got in touch again with some old ones; I had some wonderful time at work, I desperately struggled and hated work; I read Nelson Mandela’s A Long Walk to Freedom, but gave up on Ram Chandra Guha’s India after Gandhi and on Wallace’s Infinite Jest mid-way. I watched fewer movies than in 2008, and learnt only one new recipe – Jack Fruit subzi.

its February now, and bits of life are still up in the air waiting to settle down, but it now just looks like a matter of time and I wait for July eagerly... work, study, home - it will all be in its place! celebrations in july!!