Hundred thirty three

I opened the window. There was a smile on my face. Monsoon is here, in Mumbai. We have all tech and quantum computing but still at the mercy of nature.

Hundred thirty two

I should admit that I lack the concentration to read serious stuff. I bought so many books and most are not read. Sill I am worried about the books borrowed by friends. Even though they return on time, I doubt I will read them. I tried all things to put back my reading habit on track. Like, I bought a new reading lamp, got a wall stand next to my PC or plan like read one page per day and many more. The last book I read end to end was Atomic habits. The book was good and had a long lasting impression on my routine. I should re-read that book. 

Hundred thirtyone

The water problem is a serious issue. The rain patterns are erratic and global warming is true. Often the future looks bleak. Rainwater harvesting, water recycling and new taps and flushes are need of the day. In the rural area, the water problem is worst. All farmers want to be on the par with city dwellers and city people can't comment on this attitude (but often they do!). So farmers are growing cash crops which demand a lot of water. Farmers also want to grow the crop 365 days. This needs electricity and water. There are no policy or rule framework regulate water and power use. So they use both with no thought about the future, groundwater is plummeting and a severe shortage of power. Can we blame farmers? they are surviving and aspiring to go up in social strata. Therefore, we need a comprehensive policy. In the present government, there is a new water ministry and hope that something will be done.  

Hundred thirty

I am becoming more irregular in blogging. Some days I found it stupid and other days I ignored it. I should admit that the internet is the most wonderful thing happened in this millennium and the internet is the one which took away valuable time from all of us. I keep fighting this and losing most of the time to the powerful INTERNET. I should not give up.   

Hundred twenty nine

Sitting in front of a PC and don't know what to write. Stephen King told that if you don't know what to write, better to wash the car. Monsoon has started and I can't go out and wash the car. My daughter taught me that if you push yourself, you can tell a story every night. The stories are good some nights and bad on another. I have taken up this assignment of writing every day, just to improve the writing skills and discipline of sitting at one place for 15 mins. 

Hundred twenty eight

The PC was down. Therefore, I skipped a few days. I could have written on my laptop, but you know, I can give an excuse. I know all the ingredients of success and unable to put into practice. From past few days, I am practising not being hard on myself. Just wondering is it right or wrong.

Hundred twenty-seven

Still, four minutes left before 12 and the next day. Reasonably well spent first half and wasted the second half. It is ok, let me make some plans for tomorrow which will start within 3 minutes. 

Hundred twenty six

Hundred twenty-five

If I go fast, I will reach fast. More risk more reward. The ultimate gamble in life is when to take a risk and not. Someone would tell take a calculated risk. There is nothing called a calculated risk. The person who knows that calculation would win the race with the help of luck. Shall I take "the risk"

Hundred twenty four

Hypocrisy no one wants to talk about. When I am driving, I found all jaywalkers so annoying. Now I am walking and I get annoyed with all the drivers and I expect them to drive dead slow. I keep observing myself and I find it so fascinating how our brain works. It tries to maximize the benefit for the body which carries it around. We call this hypocrisy. Maybe!

Hundred twenty-three

Today I went cycling after 2 months break. The reason for a break is a small accident and laziness. Habits just melt away. You should be at it. Felt good after one-hour cycling. I went for a leisurely ride rather than finishing 15 km in 30 mins. One thing I realized, if you set up impossible goals/rules more often you break them. We should set up moderate goals so that less inhibition will be there to do that. 

Hundred and twenty-two

I was browsing through old photos and realized that I haven't edited so many of them. I always thought photos must be aesthetically pleasing. Fundamentally photography is meant for accurate documenting, later photography was considered as an art form. I started photography to document my daughter and now I consider photography more of an art. Looking at a decade old photos, I also realized that, how volatile our memory is. 

Hundred twenty-one

Working in compartments. I found myself distracted by small incidents. These incidents keep hitting me like waves and spoil an entire day. or am I fooling myself, because I don't want to work, just act like distracted? I need to introspect myself. Introspection is like plumbing work, you need to take out dirty things from the clogged pipeline. When you dive into your own brain, you see how dirty and shallow you are. Often clean water is at the top, if you get to the bottom, the dirt and sludge stirred and float to the top, now you can see that smell it and it is YOU. 

Hundred twenty

Learning your limitations is a difficult task. After understanding your limitations, overcoming them is a much tougher task. From childhood, I am poor at drawing. Now in my forties, I am planning to learn to draw. I prefer a coach or teacher but that is beyond my reach. So I have searched a few online courses. This weekend I will register. I hope learning to draw would improve my photomontage capabilities. 

Hundred nineteen

Often I think I know everything. Do I really know? or I assume that I know. Why all humans think they are the masters of the subject. This common blindness is great fun or tragedy of society. I keep testing myself if I am a given a topic to talk,  on a subject on which I think I am an expert, am I capable of talking? Unfortunately, most of the time I am not an expert. It takes time and effort to be an expert in a subject. 

Hundred eighteen

Time is the fastest entity. Two days of my life disappeared before I realized. I am lazy and ambitious. This is not the right combination. But this is a fact. How to resolve this? till date, I haven't found a way out. These two personalities fight with each other and each day one would win. Therefore, some days I am very industrious and motivated and a few other days I am a lethargic, lazy and self-pitying person. On lazy days I have no reason for hard work. On a motivated day, I want to learn everything from art to physics. Well, today I realized this and looks like today "laziness" has won its day!

Hundred seventeen

Indian team is in finals of the world cup. All are excited and tensed. Will the winning or losing change our lives? Not really. But we are emotionally connected to many events happening around us. This brings in stress and exhilaration. These emotions attached to a sports team, a favourite actor, a TV serial or a political party make our life more colourful. The attached emotion take up your time and energy, more than that it leaves you with an exhausted feeling after the event.  

Hundred sixteen

Why do we seek approval of others? Does, this behaviour has evolutionary significance? As a social animal, there is a social hierarchy. This hierarchy is formed by formal or informal approval of fellow members of our species. If this argument is right, then we keep looking around for a kind of approval from someone else. Though many books and philosophers say go with your dream, rely on your internal assessment, give none attention to other's comments and judgements, etc. Well, this doesn't work, because we are genetically wired to seek approval from others. 

Hundred fifteen

After the weekend, you are back to work. That day you feel so lethargic and frustrated. It is like you are loaded with a lead brick. One side of yours says work, work, and work. But the whole body just won't budge. This mixture of desire to and being lazy same time is a strange and dangerous mix. All I learned about this sate is that just allow the time to pass and you automatically become ok in 4 to 6 hours. There is no point in pushing yourself at that moment. 

Hundred fourteen

We are one more species on the planet. We too evolved like other animals. All the animals we see today because they could pass on their DNA to the next generation. Essentially, the species which has perfected the art of passing on the DNA to the next generation are successful. What about us? We often forget that we are animals and try to make many rules and morality. But deep inside us, one thing is happening that is, you can pass on your DNA to your progeny. Whether you pass on is immaterial, but we evolved for that. Once we understand this many actions around us become more clear.