EVOL

Note: This was written wayyyy before my previous post and was for some reason sitting in the drafts but I now have decided to let it be scrutinized by the world.

In my overall existence of 27 years on a planet between Venus and Mars, I think I have 'felt love' a total of almost 10 times. For people, animals and things. Mostly for animals and things. Love for people usually leaves me thoroughly confused and leads to a lot of intense inner monologues of how I feel for them. Only 10% of those conversations make it out in the world and usually in a jumbled up, incoherent manner. I show deepest emotions very rarely and justifiably so. SO! So I decided to let it all out here, for the first time, for you all to read and fall in love with me (like you always do).

Of course I am not going to be name dropping. Okay fine I will drop one name to satisfy your curiosity! Its CHUNMUN! My cat :) Ha! Gotcha! Y'all thought I would be naming women from Venus and men from Mars right? Right! Muhahahaha. Maybe I will, at the end of the post! (Notice my subtle marketing skills of making you read til the end- wink wink) Small disclaimer- it is not about people in particular but my feelings for people I have been in love with. Oh come on! Don't leave! Stay. Enjoy some philosophy once in a while instead of scoops.

It always starts in a major heart fluttering manner for me. I prefer rebellious individuals, even rebels without a cause would do. With cause, even better! So that has been my pattern, my list, my type. Bring a person who is a rebel with a heart and I will love you. No I will not. Sorry. I got carried away. Growing up, people who had something to say usually had some space in my heart. I hung out with the quiet ones but not the kinds who do not say anything. That is a big no no for me. I can't read your mind people! You gotta speak up from time to time and if you speak up for others even better! There, secret to my love life is out in the open. Who is interested? Anyone? No one. Sigh. FML.

Heart flutter, ears getting hot, face going red and a tonne of unabashed staring. Nonstop. So much so that it makes the desired person EXTREMELY uncomfortable. So then they go red in the face. Isn't it the best when you make people highly uncomfortable and kill all the chances you have with them? Just the best.

My love for each person has been unique to that person. I do not feel the same way for all. That will be weird bro. Hence, the pain that comes with that is unique too. But the love I have felt for all of em, as a single entity, it is the same which I do not feel for friends, family, acquaintances etc. Wait that did not come out right. I just mean that I feel the romantic love only for who I wanna feel and that is different from the love I feel for friends, family etc. Phew.

One can never compare love because the feelings that emerge out of each new person are unique and custom made to their own uniqueness. How can you compare two clouds? Except just lump all of them together into a group called clouds. Wow I am impressed with my metaphor.Also impressed with how hard I am trying to not give out specific details. Muhahaha. Again. I would give out details if each one of you individually called me and asked for it, but otherwise fuggitaboutit.

In the dusk of my 20s, some definitions have changed and some have solidified over the years. The one that has solidified is that I feel uniquely for each one I have loved. And at this point I feel like I am reiterating myself, like a stuck tape recorder but that is how I feel! Constantly. And I do not think I have been able to convey that uniqueness successfully all the time, sometimes due to ineptitude and sometimes due to lack of linguistic skills. I do know though that whenever I have tried, I usually have colossally failed. An example would be, one time I wanted to tell someone how absolutely possessive I was of them (in a good way) but instead some embarrassing, garbled horseshit came out which sounded like this- 'I love making you cry because then I get to make you feel better!' Argh. Yes I deserve all the bricks being thrown at me right now.

So to everyone I have been in love with, I love you people uniquely! With your own unique intensities, care and love. That cannot be interchanged, replaced or be forgotten. I am not sure if my readers agree. I know some will say 'one true love for me', 'you can love many people at a time', 'if not this one then the next one'. Sigh none of those work for me. I know I know I am a work of art. The love I feel is dedicated, devoted and it does not shy away or die away with time. It fades sometimes yes. I am a kind of out of sight out of mind person. But its never 'forever' out of mind, 'clean slate' etc. I have a healthy suspicion of people who say, "okay now my slate is clean, ready to pen a new one, screw the others". You can't do that. How do you do that? Yes you can forget, forgive, move on, but to clean a slate out permanently? Not possible. I am on to you guys! Be careful! And stop lying! Stop fabricating bs like 'one glove fits all kinds'. Its my glove that fits all, so use mine.

In Between

I wrote my last post in December 2015 and now it is July 2016. Have I been too busy to write something? No. Have I had inspiration to write something? No. Am I inspired right now? No. Do I wanna write something, right now, anyway? Yes. I did write something in between but saved it in drafts and that is where it quietly sits.

Last two years of my life have passed at a dizzying pace. So many new memories and so many new neural nets have formed in my brain that all the years before that have become fuzzy. I would like to believe that I am growing up for better but I cannot claim that confidently. There is definitely a shift in the total sum of my personality. I have made the mistake of believing that personality is fixed, experiences and situations change. But nothing is fixed including my personality. Including the fiber of who I believe I am, I was or will be. I am on the cusp of adding a new chapter to my life. I am entertaining the idea of bringing some seismic changes in my life which may change the course of my personality development for good or bad but I cannot claim that confidently.

From depression to anxiety to hormonal changes to social phobia to social anxiety to social rebellion to social cowering to chaotic confusions in my mind to succumbing to the world that changes every second and with which I change too, I have experienced everything to a varying degree. Have I kept my sanity, have I kept my friends, have I kept my relationships, have I kept my core, have I kept my ideas and thoughts? I cannot claim that confidently.

I have felt dizzying hatred towards things, people and ideas. And I say dizzying because the intensity has been frightening. I have felt tremendous love for things and people, which did not feel right either. I have read about impostor syndrome, lists of how to be happy, how to be confident, how to spot true friends, how to be a true friend, how to save money, how to get rid of cyctic acne, how to stop hair from graying, how to love your family, how to keep in touch, how to switch off, how to lose weight, how to dominate the world in 5 simple steps, how to train a dog, how to train your mind, how to be a monk, how to learn from history, how to predict future, how to live in the present, why my zodiac sign rules and how to revive the inner Beyonce. Have I done what I have read? Have I done what I felt? Have I felt what I have done? Cannot claim that confidently.

I live abstractly in between my ideas and my thoughts and ideas and thoughts shoved in my brain by others around me or the environment, social media, cataclysmic events and puppy videos. That is where I live and thrive and exist, alternatively. That is all I can claim confidently.

Stuff at home that makes me go apeshit and turns me into a raging gorilla monster

Yes, the title is big and self explanatory and you would ask why do we even need to read the rest of it when we already know you are bat shit crazy! To that, my friend, I would say, "Exactly! That is why you need to read it because I am crazy! Read motherfucker read! Or I will go ape shit all over you".

Now that we have the disclaimer out of our way, let us proceed.

Shower- This device was especially made in hell by Mr. Devil himself so that I could get scalded for my sins and frozen for my hubris as and when he pleased. If you are regular reader (pat yourself on the back first), you would know I have changed houses like I change light bulbs in my super pms-ing lamp( will get to it later). I have been given the worst possible shower deals in every one of those emfucking houses. The types range from:
a. Very little water- that my soap once told me 'fuck it, please don't use me, I don't wanna be stuck to your filthy body due to lack of WATERRRRRRR' Yes it roared in pain like that.
b. Too much water- that the force of it can make holes in my face.
c. Horrible drainage- that I can take 50 laps in my own filth until the water slowly, painfully decides to drain away.
d. Settings that are just plain dumb-They don't know if they should be hot or cold even if I beat the shit out of them! I beat the crap out of the settings whenever the following two things happen:  I turn it to hot and icebergs form on my head instantly or when I turn it to cold and the devil pees hot lava out of the shower holes all over me.

Microwave- Do not ever use my microwave when I gift it to you as your wedding present ( Of course I will tell you its brand new) because you WILL die like I do! Every. Day. That pile of shit will beep and cry until you move your ass and remove that year old, excuse of a curry you kept in it to thaw. It will beep like a 1000 puppies are burning in a gas leak fire! Just when you had decided to place your tired rear on an inviting couch as it takes 3 minutes to heat the 10 day old pasta (at the very least) the microwave will start beeping! And. keep. beeping. Oh it beeps so that your head starts ringing and you get filled up with an inexplicable  rage to punch 10 pandas for no reason , in the face, right on the nose.

Lamp: This horrible horrible crapfest of a lamp which I had referred to as 'super pms-ing' earlier (justifiably), is the bane of my life! Every few days it kills a light bulb which then goes to the light bulb heaven. This lamp is the opposite of light! It is a menacing black hole that devours its own lifeline! You could ask me - hey why don't you just get a new lamp! And I would say 'die and don't open your mouth'. Buy me a new one, come and put it in my house and shut it ; otherwise do not utter a single word.

Computer: MY LAPTOP HANGS. And I wish it would just hang itself one day and call it a suicide, otherwise I will kill it anyway. I will give it a merciless death that no computer has ever received before. I will take a rock and knock the wind out of it, then I will take the broken pieces and bury them. Then I will dig that little grave and exhume the body parts and burn them and bury them again. I will do this until every part of this laptop turns into ash and then I will bury that ash too. I promise.

Thermostat: This is one blazing, royal craphole of crapholes. Why don't they make the thermostats with ONE setting and one only- "COZY AMAZE". Right when I am ready to slip my hairy leg out of the comforter, the temperature drops and all hell freezes over. Literally. Fuck you thermostat industry. You should be sent to Antarctica, naked and made to be tickled by penguins there. Naked.

Frying pan: If there is a mirror to hell, it is one of my frying pans. I have some others but occasionally I need to use this particular hell mirror and nothing drives me crazier than when the frozen bread gets stuck to this garbage and takes me one light year to clean it. During one of those cleaning times, I just bang it on the counter repeatedly, continuously so that I could feel what it would be like to kill a frying pan in cold blood, if it were alive. It feels pretty good. I will not lie.

Keys: These jingly bastards are assholes. Period.

There is a never ending, inexhaustible list of things that frustrate me. So do not worry, there will be more. Until then, may all of your stuff annoy the fuck out of  you as much as mine does to me.

A Renaissance Woman

She dances, paints, sings and plays instruments 

She reads, cooks, talks and loves

She has learnt how to be alone with her thoughts

She deals with life like an iron willed warrior

She knows how powerful a yes and a no can be

She still believes in honesty, loyalty , vulnerability and affection

She comes in different sizes and shapes and colors and hues

She works long hours and sleeps long hours

She no longer strives to achieve the illusive balance

The balance within her comes from her strength of character

She is as masculine as you are feminine

She cares, dares

She is decadent, she is delirious with happiness, she writhes in pain

She cries, she sighs, she melts your heart

She owns her mind, her body, her choices

She seduces, she is an illusionist

She is high - on life

She is a feminist

And a renaissance woman.

To be or not to be

Do you think Shakespeare would have ever thought that someone centuries away would be sitting  and defiling one of his quintessential quotes in her blog? If you think so, you should slap yourself! Because the first-est thing he would have asked would be "what is this 'blog' thing, thy speaketh of "? The reason I am even mentioning Shakesy here is because apart from him, no one has ever encapsulated the conundrum of life so successfully before, right? So let me channel some of my inner tribulations about my existence and pour forth the lessons learnt.

What have I learnt in the past quarter century that I have inhabited this already over burdened sad little planet with? Okay let me first confess, I am listening to a playlist of Lana Del Rey's songs and I am distracted. She is singing whatever I am thinking. Born to die. Also her haunting voice does not help either! Anyway, snatching myself away from music and applying here, I have learnt a thing or two in these years. If I am lucky, I may get 3 more quarter centuries but I am not sure if that's the longevity I am looking for. Longevity in terms of meaning, legacy, work, family, memories would be good enough I guess. So do I know if I am right now, this very second, making good memories? Does my life have any meaning or has had meaning so far? I don't know. The neat thing is I will never know.

Even though I am a true believer of instincts, gut feeling whatever it is commonly known as, I find it neat to not know because what's the fun when you know everything? So I mentioned that we will never know if what we are doing has any meaning or not but we always have a vague feeling when we go astray. We always have a feeling gnawing at the back of our heads, telling us we might be meandering and to get back to something that makes sense. And I just try to hold on to it, dearly. What will become of me if I don't own my own instincts? If I blindly follow someone else's voice? All these years I have tried to listen to the sound of that voice in my head. I have worked hard to make sure that voice is mine and no one else's.

Alas, to disappoint my regular -2 readers, who have been reading in anticipation of pearls of Buddha wisdom, I have only learnt this; that the day my voice sounds like a friend's voice, or my father's or my mother's or someone else's then that would be the day I will cease. I will cease to be. I will cease to not to be.

There are days when I am mentally exhausted and I need it to be shown to me. to be told, to be instructed by anyone but me , but the beaten up voice comes fighting back telling me that I can be. All by myself if I wake up and just listen. 

Keep your instinct intact, safe and ever active. Just as active as your body and mind. The best way to hone instincts is to listen to them often even if they appear difficult to follow or make sense of. Develop them by practicing listening to them . I know and I know and I understand how difficult it is to listen to your own voice when life sometimes consists of emulating, imitating, fitting in, loving, caring, listening, doling out advice. Still, find time for it. Give it your presence and acceptance. 

That's all folks. Now, like the road runner in Hanna Barbera-esque world, I will swiftly sign off having handed over only thing I have ever learnt , to y'all! Until later, see ya, don't wanna be ya.

Just saying

12 moves in 5 years, from one house to another cannot be normal right? I did not think so either. Prior to these 5 years, I took 3-4 years on an average to move from one place to another and 2-3 houses in 4 years. But 12 abodes in 5 years has left all the old averages in the dust. How so many moves may have taken a toll on my psyche, you may ask. I ask it too.

Only a seasoned, well earning, well meaning psych could give me a sound analysis. But psychiatrists are not affordable just like the business class tickets or an apartment in a high rise building. They can be accessed by the ones who make enough to hire a fleet of psychs who can help them earn more, stay happy and not be bothered by such trifles as counting pennies to seek help.

I could use the cheaper option of doing an outpouring to a close friend but I imagine the friend would be as bewildered as a hare stopped in mid sprint. I may be extrapolating hard here because there might be some who could genuinely address your issues and hand out intelligent sounding advice but who has the time to tell and then who has the time to receive advice, right?

Staring out the window of my new place, I am in awe of the resilience of my never dying spirit which reasons out that change is good for me and helps me go through the moving nightmare every single time. Nothing but a zany spirit would only help me accomplish this feat. I seem to be living in a constant change-of -address mode. No one can keep a track of the zip codes I have used and thrown. Not even the collection agencies who fancy themselves as the blood hounds who can find you anywhere on this planet and extract every single penny you may or may not owe em!

So the existing situation is such as that I absolutely have stopped belonging anywhere. Every time an innocent soul, innocently inquires of me- ' Where are you from?'. I imagine that I am tearing all my graying hair out and screaming at their face with enough vivacity that they could see far down at my lungs if they dared looked inside.

20's are for travel and 30's are for thriving, 40's are for fun and 50's are for frying. I just made that up and according to my made up verse, I should be traveling in the 20's and I am. From one house to another. Is this the travel 'they' speak of? Have I followed the dictum correctly or have colossally failed to understand what traveling means. Judging from my verse making capabilities, it is pretty clear that I would have done the latter.

So for now I will just let out a quiet sigh. And hope that the twilight of my twenties would bring me some wisdom that is much needed and oft requested by my decaying grey matter. And also fun and affection and friendships and food and satisfying work and amazing sex life (whats that?) and love and world peace.

The pondering pond

It is one of those days
You want everything to be still
Calm like the little undisturbed pond
You fear a ripple may injure it
Two would destroy.

Motionless on the periphery
Moving molecularly maybe
Reflecting the sky
Reflecting on its existence.

Relaying back the face to you that you'd rather not see
But the one that is probably real
You gaze into it, it stares back
Where have all these lines and frowns come from
They did not exist a life ago.

One of these days
You expect the pond to talk back
It does not
It is just as still as you wanted it to be.