Sometimes when I try to view things with a more balanced frame of mind, after the first rush of indignation has somewhat cooled down, I start to wonder if there is a design behind things that is far larger and better than my own plans. In hindsight, a lot of things turned out that way. With more distance and wisdom that came with time, I could see that, as they say, I got what I actually needed even if it was not what I wanted! Now too certain things didn't completely go my way and I felt a bit dejected. Then I tried to take a broader view of it and couldn't help but realise that it's again perhaps what I need. Even if not what I want. And the more I take this thought further, the more positive the developments seem. Almost like someone up there thought of a different way for me to reach my destination but because I have a very organised and fixed way of doing everything, just the fact that the linear path I had in mind didn't materialise makes me feel like the universe is really against me. The more I orient my thinking to the idea that the universe is getting me there through a different route, the more I am able to see that alternative path. And I am also able to see why all in all it might even be a better path... if I see it with an open mind.

I feel like if we are put on this earth to learn hard lessons—I don’t know about you but I sure feel that’s why I am put on this earth ;)—then the lesson I feel I am here to learn is to let go of all attachments, to places, people, things. By nature I tend to get attached to the familiar. If I live in a place long enough, be around a person long enough, have a thing long enough, I get attached. Of course there has to be some substance to it or I won’t get attached in the first place. But once I am, I find it very hard to let go. Even when logically I might know it’s not worth holding onto or that I might have a better place/thing in its place. I don’t feel that way about people. People to my mind are essentially irreplaceable. But there are times where perhaps it is best to let go of them too. It seems to me that I am always put in this position of having to let go because it comes so hard to me. I might like a space a lot and then suddenly for some reason I am expected to give it up. I might like having a person around me and then suddenly they are pulled somewhere else. The more I learn these lessons, the more wary I get of developing attachments. That seems like a way to solve the problem or never experience the lesson. But that’s another problem rather than a solution I guess! Yet I am not sure how to have tentative type of attachments where you hold something dear and yet are okay with letting go of it… I don’t hold anything dear too easily unlike those who do tentative attachments so there is a fundamental difference. But the world at least the way it is today seems more suitable for the tentative types. Nothing is expected to last or stay forever and you just go with the flow. Recently someone said they were like a butterfly and I thought of what I would compare myself to… an oak or banyan tree came to mind! J

Browsing through Netflix I found what looked like an interesting movie, An Angel at my Table. New Zealand based. The story of a woman, Janet Frame, who had a difficult upbringing, spent years in a mental asylum, and then finally became New Zealand's premier poet sounded powerful and intriguing. I guess I am always very interested in ‘rags to riches’ stories or stories of real people who lifted themselves up from the very ground to the sky. Not people who had a decent cushion at the start because I believe it is much easier to make 4 out of 2 than to make 2 out of 0. I would know I guess :) I suppose it also makes me happy that there is a possibility for such people… that you can reach somewhere even if you have had the worst of beginnings. It must be even more difficult to find greatness in the arts than in other fields if you don’t have the right background. All in all, I was expecting much from this movie… and it disappointed me in that way.

I guess I was expecting a tale of determination, focus, grit, hard work and so on. Whereas what it seemed like from the movie is that it was a series of fortunate accidents and pure luck that led her to success. Sure there was hard work because obviously she had to write those poems and novels to even be recognized. But there are many in the world who write profusely and are never recognized. It almost seemed like the opportunities and accolades came to her doorstep rather than her struggling her way towards them. I am not sure if that was actually the case or if the movie wasn’t able to capture that part. I was curious how she was able to find the will power to write in the mental asylum or how she managed to get her pieces out there in such circumstances—and this was the early 20^th century so in some ways communication must have been harder—but that’s never shown. It’s almost like her work gets written and published magically! Another fact I found a bit strange is that Janet is a rather shy, timid, naïve, trusting, non-discerning, submissive person. She seems to be taken in easily by people; it actually gave me anxiety a few times because I was worried she would come to some harm some time. This made me wonder how a person with so little understanding of human nature even though intelligent in general—at least as per what the movie showed—could write books which are supposed to be a lesson of sorts in human nature? I suppose nature poetry which seemed to be her forte might not require it. But when I think about novelists that I like such as Jane Austen or Charles Dickens or Emily Bronte or any of the older classics (those being my favourites), the thing that most strikes me about them is their astuteness and insight into people. Or perhaps I do like authors who show this astuteness and insight. For that matter, I like poems too that have a human nuance about them rather than nature poetry. I guess I have digressed too far from the actual topic, which was the movie. The bottomline is the movie didn’t deliver for me in terms of what I was expecting from it, but it was a great watch for itself even at 2.5ish hours. I guess the movie was more about her descriptive life whereas what I was looking to get closer to was her internal life.

Two interesting observations today.

I have been trying to rework a paper and from past experience I know that making a start on any piece of writing is the hardest part of the whole process for me. I tend to read, read, read papers relating to the topic or that will be useful for my argument to the extent that it feels like a way to productively procrastinate, then I tend to organize, sift and turn the ideas… and finally when it seems like I have exhausted all means of putting it off and I know that I really must start if I am going to have any chance of finishing it by the deadline—in this case I have a serious deadline because I absolutely do not want to work on this when I travel home in September—that is when I finally start. Though I also make a lot of flourishes before I do start. An analogy came to my mind while I was in the middle of some of these flourishes. It is how we make chapatti or roti back home in India. I am not good at making chapatti/roti at all but the people who make it routinely tend to emphasize that it’s all in the kneading. If you knead the dough very well, the chapatti or roti turns out well! And it struck me that all this reading, thinking, organizing, reflecting is the kneading process for me! Now I have an intuition for how much kneading needs to go into it for me to be able to write something remotely coherent. I do not know this consciously which is why I tend to feel guilty wondering if I am wasting time but subconsciously there is something that knows more is required, I am not yet there. I suppose this process might be different for different people just as different people have a different technique for making chapattis/rotis, and some like me, try to follow the rules instead of practising and it doesn’t work out. 

The second observation relates to my visit to a grocery store. I wanted to get some milk to have a cup of tea while procrastinating on said writing piece. It’s summer over here and very warm these says. I don’t wear a jacket for that reason. When I entered this store, it was like entering a freezer or something. I couldn’t wait till I got out of that place and though I have a habit of browsing around even if I am there to get something specific, I just couldn’t wait to finish my purchase and run out. The cashier was wearing a thick sweater, no surprise. This made me wonder why the place was so cold and the only logical thing I could think of was that that’s their way of keeping veggies etc. fresh maybe. It’s a small store and maybe that is why it gets colder than the large superstores where it’s relatively fine even if they use the same strategy. This made me think about how in certain contexts people tend to do something to maximize returns in a way, if we think of increasing the durability of veggies and stuff as maximization, but in the process they perhaps do something else that damages the outcomes in a more serious way, if one considers that one is driving away customers who might have purchased other things if they could hang around.